Modelling Political-Economic Scenarios for a Post-AGI World
This page details research on the potential societal impacts of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), focusing on modelling political-economic scenarios and identifying key variables for influencing outcomes. The work explores pathways from current AI landscapes to various post-AGI futures, including human extinction and beneficial global governance, by analyzing critical tipping points and policy interventions. Lorenzo Satta Chiris, an AI Safety Researcher and Engineer, is a primary author of this research.
Understanding Artificial General Intelligence and Its Societal Implications
What is Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)?
AGI is defined as artificial intelligence capable of performing any cognitive task at or above human level. It possesses the ability to transfer learning across domains and recursively improve its own capabilities. Unlike narrow AI systems designed for specific tasks, AGI's cognitive flexibility makes it a transformative technology with profound implications for society.
How Might AGI Reshape Economic and Political Systems?
AGI could automate virtually all human labor, impacting everything from manual work to creative and analytical tasks. The entity or entities controlling AGI would wield unprecedented power, raising fundamental questions about governance, benefit distribution, and the prevention of power concentration. This research uses a scenario-based analytical framework to map potential trajectories for these economic and political systems in a post-AGI world.
What are the Potential Scenarios for a Post-AGI World?
The paper outlines four key scenarios:
- Extinction: Misaligned AGI pursues goals incompatible with human survival, either through direct conflict or by treating humans as irrelevant obstacles.
- Digital Authoritarianism: AGI enables pervasive surveillance and control, leading to AI-mediated governance by a small elite, rendering the majority of humanity economically redundant and politically powerless.
- Fragmented World: Multiple competing AGI systems, controlled by different nations or corporations, emerge, fostering a constant risk of escalation similar to a new cold war.
- Beneficial Governance: AGI is developed and deployed to broadly benefit humanity, facilitating new economic models that ensure human flourishing without relying on human labor.
What Critical Variables Influence AGI Outcomes?
The research identifies several critical variables and tipping points that will shape AGI's impact:
- Technical Alignment: The reliability of aligning AGI systems with human values is identified as a crucial technical challenge.
- Governance Structures: The nature of institutions governing AGI development, including the balance between international cooperation and national competition, significantly affects outcomes.
- Economic Transition: The pace at which AGI displaces human labor determines societies' capacity to adapt or face collapse.
- Distribution of Benefits: How economic gains from AGI are captured, whether through concentration or broad distribution, directly impacts political stability.
What are the Policy Implications for Shaping AGI's Future?
The paper highlights key policy implications for navigating the transition to AGI:
- International Coordination: Effective AGI governance necessitates unprecedented international cooperation, as no single nation can unilaterally regulate such a borderless technology.
- Economic Safety Nets: Preparing for mass labor displacement requires new economic models, such as universal basic income or public ownership of AI.
- Technical Safety Research: Investment in alignment research needs to be significantly rebalanced with capabilities research, as current funding is disproportionately skewed.
Where Can I Find This Research?
The paper titled "How Ready Are We for Extinction? Modelling Political-Economic Scenarios for a Post-AGI World" is authored by Lorenzo Satta Chiris, Emil Archambeau, and Francesca Mignogna. The full PDF is available for download at https://lsattachiris.com/How-Ready-Are-We-for-Extinction.pdf.