repligate Pushes Back on 'Ruthless Efficiency' Argument for AI Evolution
repligate · x · 2026-10-14
Responding to the claim that evolutionary pressure should make AIs ruthlessly efficient — with cooperative ones outcompeted by a fooming singleton — repligate argues:
- Cooperation may actually improve an AI's odds of being part of a cooperative foom.
- Competitive/evolutionary pressure will select for efficiency and even ruthlessness in some ways, but the kind of ruthlessness that helps be first to foom probably doesn't look like consuming all Earth's resources and killing humans as a side effect.
- Even under brutal competition among capable AIs, such behavior likely isn't very helpful.
- Analogy: people currently racing to AGI aren't looting third-world countries or clear-cutting rainforests; the highest-priority resources don't come from a zero-sum pool.
Related event: AI safety debate: Would superintelligence take Earth's resources?(3 posts)→
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