CONCEPT
Adaptation, Niche, and Fitness
The evolutionary principle that adaptation is always relational — a solution to specific environmental challenges — and that the traits producing success in one niche do not automatically transfer to another.
In evolutionary biology, adaptation is not a metaphor. It is a technical concept with precise meaning: an adaptation is a trait shaped by natural selection to perform a specific function in a specific environment. The polar bear's white fur was selected for camouflage in snow. The hummingbird's long bill was selected for extracting nectar from tubular flowers. Each adaptation is a solution to a specific challenge, and the solution is specific to the challenge. Change the environment, and the adaptation may become a liability. Mayr emphasized this specificity throughout his career, because the tendency to treat adaptation as a general property obscures the most important fact: adaptation is always relational. An organism is not adapted in the abstract. It is adapted to an environment.
In The You On AI Field Guide
This relational character has a direct and uncomfortable application to Segal's ascending friction thesis — the argument that AI removes mechanical difficulty at one level and relocates it