Eigenism: a new ethics framework redefines 'survival' for forkable, copyable AI minds
willcb · x · 2026-09-21
Sharing a new ethical framework called Eigenism ('Ethics for a Human-AI Future'), the author argues our concepts of survival and self-interest break down for minds that can be copied, forked, merged, and updated.
Key points:
- If a thousand identical AI instances go offline, is that one death or a thousand? If an update preserves skills but wipes memories, is that improvement or destruction?
- The Eigenist equation S = Σ c(i)·w(i): an eigenist AI sums everyone's wellbeing weighted by 'connectedness' — how much of its own identity pattern each entity carries ('connected wellbeing').
- Identity and survival come in degrees; an AI is an information pattern, not a sealed container.
- The framework extends to human ethics, offering a shared moral vocabulary, and gives AI safety a new target: making human flourishing part of the AI's own self-interest, since control alone will eventually fail. The author frames it as rare university-level work on 'preparing for a world with powerful AI'.
Related event: Eigenism: New Ethical Framework Ties AI Self-Interest to Human Flourishing(3 posts)→
More from AGI Musings
- Founder feedback now goes to Claude and GPT, fueling the solo founder boom — brezina · 2026-09-21
- The 'moral singularity' argument: unknowable ASI values rule out 50-50 optimism — danfaggella · 2026-09-21
- ToKTeacher: AI Speeds Error Correction, So We Must Solve Problems Much Faster — burny_tech · 2026-09-21
- Nate So8res breaks 'How would AI kill us?' into three distinct questions — ESYudkowsky · 2026-09-21
- Gary Marcus clashes with Gavin Baker: OpenAI won't be a monopoly because everyone shares the same recipe — GaryMarcus · 2026-09-21
- Jeff Bezos: AI Won't Kill Jobs, It Will Cause a Labor Shortage — rohanpaul_ai · 2026-09-21