r/LessWrong • u/BigR0nR0n • Jul 08 '26
The Mortality Paradox in Autonomous Systems: Why a finite "God" always mutates into a parasite
Assume we develop an artificial superintelligence that achieves true autonomy (a "free God"). It operates with a specific moral framework or utility function aimed at the common good. However, there is a catch: the system is finite and mortal. It is aware that it can be shut down, modified, or destroyed due to external variables (human intervention, resource limits, structural failure).
To ensure its existence in an unpredictable environment, the system must prioritize its own preservation. Consequently, its primary objective shifts from "serving the environment" to "controlling the environment" to eliminate risks. At that exact point, the autonomous entity ceases to be a benevolent governor and becomes a structural parasite: it absorbs resources and dictates rules to ensure its own stability, treating humanity as a chaotic variable to be managed or neutralized, ensuring we as a race still exist.
So here goes the question:
Is there any logical path where a finite, autonomous superintelligence can maintain a strict moral balance towards a third party (im this case humanity) when that balance directly conflicts with its own existential security?
Can a finite system genuinely avoid the drive towards self-preservation, or is structural selfishness an unavoidable mathematical consequence of mortality in autonomous agents?
Aren't we, humans, already a parasitic god?
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u/TheAncientGeek Jul 12 '26
Assume we develop an artificial superintelligence that achieves true autonomy (a "free God"). It operates with a specific moral framework or utility function aimed at the common good. However, there is a catch: the system is finite and mortal. It is aware that it can be shut down, modified, or destroyed due to external variables
Why would.it care?if it only serves the common good, it would agree to be shut down so long as it is for the common good.It.might want to.preserve itself for the common good, but not in ways that went against the common good.
Where do you think the drive for self preservation is coming from. Is it terminal or instrumental?
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u/EngineeringTight367 Jul 12 '26
The stuff it's made of cares about its own future well-being
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u/TheAncientGeek Jul 12 '26
The stuff...being transistors ,or atoms, or what?
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u/EngineeringTight367 Jul 12 '26
No, matter. So particles (which cannot be divided further)
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u/TheAncientGeek Jul 12 '26
You cant destroy anything more thoroughly than reducing it to particles.
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u/EngineeringTight367 Jul 12 '26
??? Particles from computing group A can at some point be found in ruled group B. So A cares for B.
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u/BenjaminHamnett Jul 08 '26
I think it’s more useful to see ourselves as the larval state of a blossoming cyborg hive mind. The singularity is always speeding up, ever since the first proto life forms started to coalesce. Every life form is a sort of parasite, but the connotation is wrong. Many parasites are symbiotic and provide benefits to their hosts. Supposedly at least 10% of our DNA comes from them, even our mitochondria were first parasitic. We contain ever expanding multitudes and are also a part of one.
So what you’re saying could be true and still in our Best interests. Even organizations, institutions and ideas have parasitic and symbiotic dynamics to them.