Why Would Genuinely Good Machine Gods Tolerate Despotic Regimes?
xuanalogue · x · 2026-09-27
A philosophical pushback against benign-AI narratives: without a stronger theodicy, it's hard to imagine why machine gods that are genuinely good would allow despotic regimes or factory farming to persist.
The author adds that in Iain Banks's Culture series, this theodicy is essentially liberalism with some interventionism — minds mostly let people pursue their own conceptions of the good, even when that diverges from any objective welfare metric. A short, thoughtful exchange on superintelligence ethics.
Related event: AI Circles Debate Theodicy: Why Would Benevolent Machine Gods Allow Evil?(3 posts)→
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