A thought on unipolarity: One worry here is that the pursuit of post-AGI unipolarity could be the exact kind of thing that triggers a catastrophic setback. If one nation or coalition looks posed to create an aligned-to-them AGI, and lock up control of the future, this gives other nations strong incentives to launch preemptive strikes before that happens. This can be true even if everyone understands the impending AGI to be quite benevolent. There are plenty of nuclear-armed nations whose leaders might strongly prefer to retain private power, even to the detriment of their populations’ wellbeing, rather than accept benign foreign hegemony.
A thought on unipolarity: One worry here is that the pursuit of post-AGI unipolarity could be the exact kind of thing that triggers a catastrophic setback. If one nation or coalition looks posed to create an aligned-to-them AGI, and lock up control of the future, this gives other nations strong incentives to launch preemptive strikes before that happens. This can be true even if everyone understands the impending AGI to be quite benevolent. There are plenty of nuclear-armed nations whose leaders might strongly prefer to retain private power, even to the detriment of their populations’ wellbeing, rather than accept benign foreign hegemony.