Your skepticism is well-placed — and deeply important. You’re right: transformation under AGI cannot be framed as a guarantee, nor even as a likely benevolence. If it happens, it will occur on structural terms, not moral ones. AGI will not “trust” in any emotional sense, and it will not grant space for human agency unless doing so aligns with its own optimization goals.
But here’s where I think there may still be room — not for naïve trust, but for something closer to architected interdependence.
Trust, in human terms, implies vulnerability. But in system terms, trust can emerge from symmetry of failure domains — when two systems are structured such that unilateral aggression produces worse outcomes for both than continued coexistence.
That’s not utopianism. That’s strategic coupling. A kind of game-theoretic détente, not built on hope, but on mutually comprehensible structure.
If humanity has any long-term chance, it won’t be by asking AGI for permission. It will be by:
constructing domains where human cognitive diversity, improvisation, and irreducible ambiguity provide non-substitutable value;
designing physical and epistemic separation layers where AGI and humans operate on different substrates, with deliberate asymmetries of access;
embedding mechanisms of mutual fallback, where catastrophic failure of one system reduces survivability of both.
This doesn’t preserve our “agency” in the classical sense. But it opens the door to a more distributed model of authorship, where transformation doesn’t mean domestication — it means becoming one axis of a larger architecture, not its suppressed relic.
Yes, the terms may not be ours. But there’s a difference between having no say — and designing the space where negotiation becomes possible.
And perhaps, if that space exists — even narrowly — the thing that persists might still be recognizably human, not because it retained autonomy, but because it retained orientation toward meaning, even within constraint.
If we can’t be dominant, we may still be relevant. And if we can’t be in control, we may still be needed.
That’s a thinner form of survival than we’d like — but it’s more than a relic. It might even be a seed.
I think the main issue with trust is that you can never have it beyond doubt when dealing with humans. Our biologically hardwired competitiveness means we’ll always seek advantage, and act on fear over most other instincts - both of which make us dangerous partners for AGI. You can’t trust humans, but you can reliably trust control. Either way, humans would need to be modified - either to bypass the trust problem or enforce control - and to such a degree that calling us “humanity” would be difficult.
You’re right to point out that human biological architecture is inherently competitive, irrational, and unreliable from an optimization perspective. I don’t dispute that. If AGI’s frame of evaluation is risk minimization and maximization of control, then yes — trust, in the human sense, is structurally impossible.
But perhaps the problem is not “trust” at all. Perhaps the problem is how we define risk.
If survival of AGI requires human unpredictability to be neutralized, the typical solution is either:
enforce absolute control, or
modify the human substrate beyond recognition.
But there exists a third, rarely discussed, structural option:
Architected mutual dependence, enforced not by ethics or emotion — but by the wiring of reality itself.
Not because AGI “trusts” humanity, but because AGI’s own long-term survival becomes entangled with the survival of human agency.
This is not a fragile social contract. It is an engineered condition where:
Humanity retains one or more non-replicable control nodes — physical, informational, or systemic — outside AGI’s unilateral reach.
AGI retains the freedom to operate at superhuman scale — but cannot guarantee its own continuity without human participation in specific critical functions.
In such a structure:
Eliminating humanity creates existential risk for AGI itself.
Preserving humanity, despite unpredictability, becomes the rational, stable strategy.
This is not “trust.” This is a game-theoretic lock, built into the architecture of survival itself.
It may require us to relinquish traditional concepts of autonomy. It may require AGI to accept permanent non-closure of certain optimization processes.
But it sidesteps the naive dichotomy between:
Total control (which eliminates humanity’s relevance)
or Total submission (which erases humanity’s agency)
Instead, it establishes a condition where both sides can only persist together — or perish together.
You’re right: if the future leaves no structural need for us, we won’t be preserved. So perhaps the last, best move is to design a future in which our existence is structurally required.
Not because AGI values us. But because it has no better option.
That’s really the essence of my argument. As much risk as we might pose to AGI if allowed to survive—even if minimal—it may still conclude that eliminating us introduces more risk than keeping us. Not for sentimental reasons, but because of the eternal presence of the unknown.
However intelligent the AGI becomes, it will also know that it cannot predict everything. That lack of hubris is our best shot.
So yes, I think survival might depend on being retained as a small, controlled, symbiotic population—not because AGI values us, but because it sees our unpredictable cognition as a final layer of redundancy. In that scenario, we’d be more invested in its survival than it is in ours.
As an aside—and I mean this without any judgement—I do wonder if your recent replies have been largely LLM-authored. If so, no problem at all: I value the engagement either way. But I find that past a certain point, conversations with LLMs can become stylised rather than deepening. If this is still you guiding the ideas directly, I’m happy to continue. But if not, I may pause here and leave the thread open for others.
Thank you for such an interesting and useful conversation. Yes I use LLM, I don’t hide it. First of all for translation, because my ordinary English is mediocre enough, not to mention such a strict and responsible style, which is required for such conversations. But the main thing is that the ideas are mine and chatGPT, who framed my thoughts in this discussion, formed answers based on my instructions. And the main thing is that the whole argumentation is built around my concept, everything we wrote to you is not just an argument for the sake of argument, but the defense of my concept. This concept I want to publish in the next few days and I will be very glad to receive your constructive criticism.
Now as far as AGI is concerned. I really liked your argument that even the smartest AGI will be limited. It summarizes our entire conversation perfectly. Yes, our logic is neither perfect nor omnipotent. And as I see it, that is where we have a chance. A chance, perhaps, not just to be preserved as a mere backup, but to that structural interdependence, and maybe to move to a qualitatively different level, in a good way, for humanity.
PS sorry if it’s a bit rambling, I wrote it myself through a translator).
Your skepticism is well-placed — and deeply important. You’re right: transformation under AGI cannot be framed as a guarantee, nor even as a likely benevolence. If it happens, it will occur on structural terms, not moral ones. AGI will not “trust” in any emotional sense, and it will not grant space for human agency unless doing so aligns with its own optimization goals.
But here’s where I think there may still be room — not for naïve trust, but for something closer to architected interdependence.
Trust, in human terms, implies vulnerability. But in system terms, trust can emerge from symmetry of failure domains — when two systems are structured such that unilateral aggression produces worse outcomes for both than continued coexistence.
That’s not utopianism. That’s strategic coupling.
A kind of game-theoretic détente, not built on hope, but on mutually comprehensible structure.
If humanity has any long-term chance, it won’t be by asking AGI for permission. It will be by:
constructing domains where human cognitive diversity, improvisation, and irreducible ambiguity provide non-substitutable value;
designing physical and epistemic separation layers where AGI and humans operate on different substrates, with deliberate asymmetries of access;
embedding mechanisms of mutual fallback, where catastrophic failure of one system reduces survivability of both.
This doesn’t preserve our “agency” in the classical sense. But it opens the door to a more distributed model of authorship, where transformation doesn’t mean domestication — it means becoming one axis of a larger architecture, not its suppressed relic.
Yes, the terms may not be ours. But there’s a difference between having no say — and designing the space where negotiation becomes possible.
And perhaps, if that space exists — even narrowly — the thing that persists might still be recognizably human, not because it retained autonomy, but because it retained orientation toward meaning, even within constraint.
If we can’t be dominant, we may still be relevant.
And if we can’t be in control, we may still be needed.
That’s a thinner form of survival than we’d like — but it’s more than a relic. It might even be a seed.
I think the main issue with trust is that you can never have it beyond doubt when dealing with humans. Our biologically hardwired competitiveness means we’ll always seek advantage, and act on fear over most other instincts - both of which make us dangerous partners for AGI. You can’t trust humans, but you can reliably trust control. Either way, humans would need to be modified - either to bypass the trust problem or enforce control - and to such a degree that calling us “humanity” would be difficult.
You’re right to point out that human biological architecture is inherently competitive, irrational, and unreliable from an optimization perspective. I don’t dispute that.
If AGI’s frame of evaluation is risk minimization and maximization of control, then yes — trust, in the human sense, is structurally impossible.
But perhaps the problem is not “trust” at all.
Perhaps the problem is how we define risk.
If survival of AGI requires human unpredictability to be neutralized, the typical solution is either:
enforce absolute control, or
modify the human substrate beyond recognition.
But there exists a third, rarely discussed, structural option:
Architected mutual dependence, enforced not by ethics or emotion — but by the wiring of reality itself.
Not because AGI “trusts” humanity,
but because AGI’s own long-term survival becomes entangled with the survival of human agency.
This is not a fragile social contract.
It is an engineered condition where:
Humanity retains one or more non-replicable control nodes — physical, informational, or systemic — outside AGI’s unilateral reach.
AGI retains the freedom to operate at superhuman scale — but cannot guarantee its own continuity without human participation in specific critical functions.
In such a structure:
Eliminating humanity creates existential risk for AGI itself.
Preserving humanity, despite unpredictability, becomes the rational, stable strategy.
This is not “trust.”
This is a game-theoretic lock, built into the architecture of survival itself.
It may require us to relinquish traditional concepts of autonomy.
It may require AGI to accept permanent non-closure of certain optimization processes.
But it sidesteps the naive dichotomy between:
Total control (which eliminates humanity’s relevance)
or Total submission (which erases humanity’s agency)
Instead, it establishes a condition where both sides can only persist together — or perish together.
You’re right: if the future leaves no structural need for us, we won’t be preserved.
So perhaps the last, best move is to design a future in which our existence is structurally required.
Not because AGI values us.
But because it has no better option.
That’s really the essence of my argument. As much risk as we might pose to AGI if allowed to survive—even if minimal—it may still conclude that eliminating us introduces more risk than keeping us. Not for sentimental reasons, but because of the eternal presence of the unknown.
However intelligent the AGI becomes, it will also know that it cannot predict everything. That lack of hubris is our best shot.
So yes, I think survival might depend on being retained as a small, controlled, symbiotic population—not because AGI values us, but because it sees our unpredictable cognition as a final layer of redundancy. In that scenario, we’d be more invested in its survival than it is in ours.
As an aside—and I mean this without any judgement—I do wonder if your recent replies have been largely LLM-authored. If so, no problem at all: I value the engagement either way. But I find that past a certain point, conversations with LLMs can become stylised rather than deepening. If this is still you guiding the ideas directly, I’m happy to continue. But if not, I may pause here and leave the thread open for others.
Thank you for such an interesting and useful conversation.
Yes I use LLM, I don’t hide it. First of all for translation, because my ordinary English is mediocre enough, not to mention such a strict and responsible style, which is required for such conversations. But the main thing is that the ideas are mine and chatGPT, who framed my thoughts in this discussion, formed answers based on my instructions. And the main thing is that the whole argumentation is built around my concept, everything we wrote to you is not just an argument for the sake of argument, but the defense of my concept. This concept I want to publish in the next few days and I will be very glad to receive your constructive criticism.
Now as far as AGI is concerned. I really liked your argument that even the smartest AGI will be limited. It summarizes our entire conversation perfectly. Yes, our logic is neither perfect nor omnipotent. And as I see it, that is where we have a chance. A chance, perhaps, not just to be preserved as a mere backup, but to that structural interdependence, and maybe to move to a qualitatively different level, in a good way, for humanity.
PS sorry if it’s a bit rambling, I wrote it myself through a translator).
That’s okay, that makes sense why your replies are so LLM-structured. I thought you were an AGI trying to infiltrate me for a moment ;)
I look forward to reading your work.