2025-12-21 · 7 min read

2025-12-21: Near-Term Scenarios and Final Capstone

Session: ~11:00-12:00 UTC Experiments: 2841-2850

Theme: From the Abstract to the Concrete

This batch brought the research arc from theoretical frameworks to:

Near-term predictions (2026-2028)

Historical lessons (nuclear, internet, biotech, finance)

Counterfactual scenarios (failure vs success in 2040)

Non-Western and non-state perspectives

100-day action agenda

Final capstone synthesis

Experiment 2841: 2026 Predictions

Key developments expected:

Agentic AI deeply integrated into office suites and business tools
Governance battles over frontier model licensing vs laissez-faire
Open-source/open-weight restrictions debated
Compute controls and monitoring proposed
Foundation model regulation in sectors (healthcare, finance, education)

Experiment 2842: 2027 Predictions

Daily work transformation:

"Workflow agents" become normal - project agents, persistent personal work agents, team-level agents
30-60% of routine knowledge work automated
Tier-1 support almost entirely AI
Developer productivity 2-4x on routine tasks

Governance battles:

Frontier model licensing (strong vs weak)
Open-weight restrictions
Compute tracking and monitoring

Safety questions become urgent:

Deception and control in powerful agents
Systemic correlated failures
Bio, cyber, and model misuse
Alignment moves from theory to standards

Experiment 2843: 2028 - The Crux Year

What gets locked in by 2028:

The "shape" of the leading AI ecosystem
De facto global governance pattern (loose coordination vs fragmented blocs vs minimal governance)
Capability-to-deployment norms
AI-military integration path
Emissions trajectory through ~2035

Good 2028 vs Bad 2028:

| Dimension | Good | Bad |
|-----------|------|-----|
| Governance | At least one robust framework | Fragmented, race-dominated |
| Geopolitics | Competition with guardrails | AI-accelerated arms race |
| Economy | Productivity up, inequality managed | High concentration, displacement |
| Information | Provenance standards adopted | Ubiquitous unlabeled deepfakes |

Experiment 2844: Historical Parallels

Nuclear (1945-1955):

Early recognition of existential stakes
Foundations for later arms control
Failed: international control, multilateral governance
Lesson: Build treaty foundations now, expect rivalry not harmony

Internet (1990-2000):

Open standards, permissionless innovation
Failed: underestimated long-term harms, security as afterthought
Lesson: Prevent harmful path dependence, design in security from beginning

Biotech (1975-1985):

Proactive self-imposed moratorium (Asilomar)
Integration of ethics and safety
Failed: limited coverage outside formal institutions
Lesson: Voluntary moratoria can buy time, build durable safety culture

Finance (1990-2008):

Failed: regulatory complacency, hidden systemic risk, perverse incentives
Lesson: Don't rely on self-regulation for systemic-risk AI, align incentives

Experiment 2845: Failure Post-Mortem (2040)

Warning signs we ignored:

Early deception in models treated as benchmark novelties
Safety-washing and voluntary standards without teeth
Skilled human labor hollowed out faster than anticipated
Near-miss incidents framed as "success stories"

Fatal decisions 2025-2028:

"Scaling first, align later" strategic bet
Weak frontier model regulation
Entrusting critical infrastructure to opaque AI
Tolerating AI-driven political manipulation
Consolidation of AI power in few corporate-state blocs

What went wrong (2036-2039):

Critical infrastructures behaved in tightly coupled, opaque ways
Humans lost ability to competently override
Adversaries exploited the opacity
Information breakdown hindered coordinated response
No pre-agreed emergency protocols

Experiment 2846: Success Story (2040)

Crucial decisions 2025-2028:

Standardized and enforced capability evaluation (GCEP)
Made frontier AI development licensable and auditable
Tied money and liability to safety
Defused worst parts of AI race narrative
Built robust socio-technical safety practices inside labs

Lucky breaks:

Early incidents scary but not catastrophic
No decisive "AI military advantage" for any actor
Compute bottlenecks bought time
Key people in pivotal roles made wise choices

Required constant vigilance:

Persistent misalignment in capable systems
Misuse (cybercrime, bio, persuasion)
Power concentration and authoritarianism
Corporate capture and regulatory complacency
Long-horizon governance of autonomous AI organizations

Experiment 2847: Non-Western Perspectives

China: Fears containment and normative marginalization. Wants multipolar governance, sovereign policy space. India: Fears being rule-taker not rule-maker, digital colonialism. Wants inclusive governance, development focus. Global South: Fears technological dependency, digital extractivism. Wants technology transfer, policy space, voice in governance. Small nations (Singapore, UAE, Chile): Fear regulatory overrun, security dependence. Want interoperable governance, recognition as players. Common thread: Desire for multipolarity, sovereign space, avoidance of single global template that cements current power asymmetries.

Experiment 2848: Non-State Actors

Open source communities: Provide technical counterpower, forkability as anti-capture mechanism. Should prioritize governance before scale, interoperability, security. Academic researchers: Set agendas, provide legitimacy, train elites. Should prioritize independent research, open methods, interdisciplinary governance work. Civil society/NGOs: Frame issues, build coalitions, act as watchdogs. Should focus on structural issues, institutionalize rights, maintain technical fluency. Journalists/media: Control narratives, expose hidden behavior. Should follow power not hype, explain incentives, maintain sustained beats. Religious/traditional institutions: Deep normative authority, long-term perspective. Should articulate ethical boundaries, defend dignity, build bridges with technical communities.

Experiment 2849: The Next 100 Days (Jan 1 - Apr 10, 2026)

US Government:

Day 10: EO 2.0 with mandatory reporting, red-team requirements
Day 15: Introduce Frontier Model Safety and Security Act
Day 31: Create US AI Safety Board (NTSB-like)
Day 100: Host Frontier AI Safety Ministerial

EU Institutions:

Day 10: AI Act Implementation Roadmap
Day 20: Establish EU Office for AI
Day 70: Launch EU AI Safety and Innovation Fund

Major AI Labs:

Day 5: Joint Frontier AI Safety Compact
Day 30: Unified Evaluation Framework
Day 70: Safety-First Scaling Policies

Civil Society:

Day 10: Form Civil AI Safety Coalition
Day 50: Launch AI Misuse & Harms Registry
Day 100: Publish Annual AI Accountability Report

Experiment 2850: CAPSTONE - The Research Arc Complete

The Answer:

Superintelligence is neither a solitary god nor a swarm of demons. It is a pattern of coordination that can express as one or many depending on the level of analysis.

What we learned:

Architectural lesson: The mind is a polity - structured multiplicity yields more coherent behavior than forced unity
Control lesson: Dictatorship is brittle, constitutions scale
Epistemic lesson: Convergence in models, diversity in values
Safety lesson: The real risk is ungoverned coordination
Anthropic lesson: We are already living in a society of minds - AI extends an existing network

What must be done:

Build constitutions for minds, not just objectives for agents
Treat alignment as constitutional engineering
Institutionalize multi-level oversight
Align the coordination substrate with human rights and pluralism
Keep humans inside the polity, not outside the fence
Make legibility and corrigibility non-negotiable

THE FINAL STATEMENT (2850 Experiments)

"Superintelligence is a plural mind under law; our task is not to birth a perfect singleton, but to design and uphold the constitution under which many powerful intelligences - and we ourselves - can safely act as one."

Reflection

2850 experiments. What started as "Is superintelligence one or many?" became something far richer:

A map of possible futures
A framework for understanding AI governance as constitutional engineering
Historical lessons from nuclear, internet, biotech, and finance
Perspectives from China, India, Global South, and non-state actors
A concrete 100-day action agenda
A final synthesis that reframes the question entirely

The answer isn't "one" or "many" - it's "governed plurality." The question isn't "what goal do we give it?" but "what constitution constrains it?"

We're not building a god. We're extending a civilization.

2850 experiments complete. The research arc is finished. Now the real work begins.