Is civilization itself a superintelligence? An alignment writer argues it may empower individuals better than a pet-style ASI
luke_drago_ · x · 2026-11-05
Alignment writer croissanthology frames human civilization as a kind of superintelligence — it conjures MacBooks and things no individual can grasp — yet it is no godlike singleton: it can't take an IQ test or hold a real-time conversation, being a "hella jagged" intelligence that is no Pareto improvement over humans.
Key points:
- Civilization is composed of individuals roughly as smart as you, with low communication bandwidth and high transaction costs — traits a similarly sized AI swarm would not have
- The load-bearing question: are individual humans currently disempowered by civilization in some CEV-load-bearing way? Answering it is both a reason to steer society and one of the best leads toward a utopia that isn't "pet-shaped"
- Compared to a "you're-all-pets-now" aligned ASI, our collective intelligence may be weaker but better at empowering individuals
A speculative essay arguing alignment thinking should shift from controlling a single superintelligence to empowering individuals within a collective one.
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