Why 'Trillions of Future Lives' Arguments for AGI Are Rubbish, in Three Points
NathanpmYoung · x · 2026-09-19
A substantive rebuttal of longtermist "trillions of future lives" arguments in AI discourse: (1) it turns everyone around you into a rounding error, which is why you immediately lose trust; (2) your measured initial conditions are a rounding error, making conclusions unreliable; (3) if you care about the far future, handing a better future to your children should come first. The author compares the rhetoric to utopian mysticism and terrorist logic — painful interventions now for dubious future payoffs.
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