[Ads-l] Phrase: dark forest (applied to the cultural commons)

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

The phrase "dark forest" is another example of a science fiction term
that has been employed with an extended meaning. The following xtweet
appeared yesterday: Truly sad to see the intellectual commons become a
Dark Forest

Here is some background. Wikipedia has an article about the "Dark
Forest hypothesis" which is a proposed explanation for the Fermi
paradox:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_forest_hypothesis

[Begin Wikipedia excerpt]
The dark forest hypothesis is the idea that extraterrestrial
civilizations may exist in abundance across the universe, but remain
silent and hidden out of fear that revealing themselves would lead to
destruction by a more technologically advanced and hostile
civilization.
[End Wikipedia excerpt]

This name comes from the 2008 science fiction novel "The Dark Forest"
by Liu Cixin although this hypothesis had been articulated many years
before 2008.

The tweet immediately below describes a recent event, but it does not
use the term "dark forest".

Xtweet handle: Jeffrey Shallit @shallit43
Timestamp: 5:38 AM, Sep 18, 2026
https://x.com/shallit43/status/2100882164384444798

[Begin xtweet except]
A new risk for mathematicians:  a colleague reports that immediately
after they posted an abstract of their upcoming talk online, a student
elsewhere used AI to derive proofs of the stated results and then
posted it on the arxiv.
My colleague hadn't posted to arxiv yet.
[Begin xtweet excerpt]

Xtweet handle: Erik Hoel @erikphoel
Timestamp: 4:16 PM, Sep 18, 2026
https://x.com/erikphoel/status/2101042606465573151

[Begin xtweet except]
Truly sad to see the intellectual commons become a Dark Forest
[Begin xtweet excerpt]

Substack Name: The Intrinsic Perspective
Substack Article: Culture Becomes a Dark Forest
Author: Erik Hoel
Date: Sep 09, 2026
https://www.theintrinsicperspective.com/p/culture-becomes-a-dark-forest

[Begin excerpt]
But why stop at math? All subjects are subject to the rules of the
dark forest. It used to be possible to, say, go to a scientific
conference to present unfinished work, or go online and get feedback
on your idea for a fantasy novel. The walls of effort, of
old-fashioned normal human effort, were predictable, and scooping
ideas required putting in that same effort, and if you got scooped it
would at least result in similar insights. And while insights or
generative capacity for the rest of culture is harder to quantify and
track than insight from math progress, it still exists, and examples
abound (e.g., Tolkien creating the modern fantasy genre). People used
to say: “We’re a start-up in stealth.” Now all thinking must be in
stealth.
[End excerpt]

Garson

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