Machines can’t evolve.
Mueller 24, [Milton Mueller (Professor and Program Director of the Georgia Tech School of Public Policy, Masters of Science in Cybersecurity Policy), "The Myth of AGI: How the illusion of Artificial General Intelligence distorts and distracts digital governance," Internet Governance Project, Georgia Tech, https://www.internetgovernance.org/wp-content/uploads/MythofAGI.pdf, accessed 7-2-2024, 5/24] Mr.Mr.
The machine evolution argument can be readily dismissed. Machines do not evolve. Of course, technology does change over time in ways that superficially resemble “evolution,” but a proper application of evolutionary concepts corrects that perception. The machine itself isn’t evolving – the changes in technology are produced by humans responding to markets and other human social systems. Evolution in the Darwinian sense requires self-replication, mutation and natural selection over many generational cycles. The replication of machines comes from human manufacturing processes, not from self-replication. Nor does mutation – changes in the design of machines – come from the machines. They come from human decisions in response to societal pressures for efficiency, innovation and safety. The selection process – that is, which machines continue to be produced and which become obsolete – is also governed by human decisions. The choices are made by people in competitive markets and/or political institutions. Hence, the machines themselves do not evolve, industries and sociotechnical systems do. Human decisions, by individuals or in aggregate, control each step of the process. If this is true, we cannot speak of “machine evolution.” For machines to evolve, they would first have to become alive, which means they would gain the ability to self-support and self-replicate, which they currently cannot do.