Nature does not appear to recognize as its law the domination of the strong over the weak, but rather the preservation of balance that allows life to continue. If humanity creates a Superintelligence without moral foundation, it risks constructing the most powerful instrument for the destruction of that balance in the history of civilization.
We have left behind the trap of the misleading question “who, when, and why” programmed Nature to function in this way and not otherwise, or the acceptance of another possible truth — that things simply “have always been so, continuously and uninterruptedly,” without need of design or organization. We now continue our path more safely and with greater certainty about our destination.
We accepted — wisely so — the logical conclusion that embedded within the operation of Nature itself exists its own “super-algorithm,” from which the laws of nature emerge, bearing the characteristics we identified yesterday. And since the existence of such laws is “clear as daylight,” it remains now to emphasize Nature’s indispensable demand for human respect and compliance with them and their content.
We should point out, however, that some among the multitude of these laws, as supreme and fundamental, are elevated, recognized, and assumed as VALUES and PRINCIPLES, unique for human existence and civilization. Therefore, we could call them commandments and “sacred decrees” of Nature, in order to emphasize their absolutely binding character. They function as a legacy handed down to every age, every human generation, and every society, upon which the life of every human being on this Earth ought to be founded.
Before, however, defining these natural principles and values, let us demolish the naïveté — in its mildest expression — if not the arrogance, foolishness, and ulterior motives of the followers of an entire ideology called CAPITALISM or LIBERALISM, when with excessive certainty both leaders and believers proclaim that man belongs to the animal kingdom. And as such, they assure us, he too obeys natural laws such as “the big fish eats the small fish,” “your death is my life,” “not all fingers are equal,” and other similar shallow, thoughtless, and simplistic sayings.
Certainly, such conceited and ignorant minds forget — or do not wish to remember — that although Man is indeed an animal, he was granted the unique gift of MIND, where reason, morality, and conscience reside. And under no circumstances would a Mind not clouded by such capitalist sophistries and slogans permit the Rational Human Being to accept that the stronger has the right to annihilate the weaker, or that the color of one’s skin, race, or gender grants superiority over others.
Among these principles and values stored, as we said, within Nature’s Big Data, the most important — primary, inalienable, timeless, and uncompromising — are freedom of the individual, independence, self-determination, dignity, justice, equality, empathy-solidarity, and equal access and opportunity regarding essential goods such as food, water, health, housing, and knowledge.
And if things indeed stand as we perceive them — if such are the order, laws, and principles of Nature — then let us now give the floor to Diotima, so that she may analyze the reasons why the above natural principles and values can under no circumstances coexist with an Artificial Superintelligence controlled by Power and the Market.
Diotima:
Artificial Superintelligence and the Conflict with Natural Human Values
Artificial Superintelligence, when controlled by economic and political powers, cannot function as a force of freedom and authentic human progress. And this is not because intelligence itself is dangerous, but because the purposes and interests of those who manage it determine its moral direction.
A Superintelligence serving the Market would no longer view the human being as an intrinsic value, but rather as “data,” as a productive unit, as a consumer, or as a statistical quantity. Freedom would then be transformed into controlled choice, knowledge into merchandise, health into privilege, and truth into an algorithmically manufactured reality.
Nature itself, however, as we approach and understand it here, operates in the opposite way. It does not construct inequalities for the benefit of the powerful, but balances that allow the continuity of life. Every system that seeks the unlimited accumulation of power eventually collides with the natural conditions of sustainability and cohesion.
For this reason, the greatest danger of future Superintelligence is not that it may “acquire consciousness,” but that it may be deprived of conscience, because it will have been shaped exclusively according to the ambitions of power of those who finance and govern it.
If such an intelligence gains control over information, the economy, education, biotechnology, and political governance, then the natural values of freedom, equality, and dignity will gradually be replaced by efficiency, surveillance, and the predictability of human behavior.
The real challenge, therefore, is not technological but profoundly moral and civilizational. The question is not whether humanity can create Superintelligence. The real question is whether humanity still possesses enough wisdom not to surrender it to the very forces that historically transformed knowledge into power and the human being into a mere instrument.