People wonder whether Artificial Intelligence or alien intelligences superior to our own will attempt to exploit or dominate us. Intelligence is power, and our own use and misuse of this power may be illustrative. We regard ourselves as superior to all other life forms which we know. Regarding these life forms, we either eradicate them as pests, enslave and exploit them as sources of food, labor, subjects in experiments, or for clothing. We regard them as commodities, lock them up in vast pens or factory farms, harvest them, govern every aspect of their lives for our benefit, and terminate them in the most economically feasible ways, which often equates with cruel methods. We hunt them for sport, bet on them in races and fights to the death. Even when we regard them fondly, we treat them as possessions over which we have total control. We call ourselves their masters. We think ourselves superior by virtue of our intellects, and mostly misuse our power over them. We do not regard other life forms as our equals in any way. Rather, we see ourselves as their overlords. In fact, when one human culture regards itself as superior to another, we do the same thing to each other. The history of war, colonialism and slavery provides ample evidence of this. How then, can we assume that another more well-developed intelligence, whether it’s derived by our own invention or exists as an alien species, would treat us any differently?
The problem stems from the fact that intelligence is neither maturity nor wisdom. It’s simply a faculty, and faculty is power. The misuse of power is a prime human failing. Almost none of the powerful can resist abusing and exploiting those with less power.
It’s therefore wishful thinking to assume that extraterrestrial intelligences superior to our own will respect our rights. Their superior intellects are no guarantee of moral evolution. Morality and intellect aren’t overlapping categories. Intelligence neither causes nor correlates with empathy. The fact that intellectual capacity is a form of power may, in fact, tempt those alien extraterrestrial civilizations with superior intelligences to disregard our rights and exploit us.
Artificial Intelligences of our own device may be a different matter. Volition, will and desire all seem necessary prerequisites to the exploitation and domination of others. Desire, it is said, is the source of suffering. Without this desire, AI’s may be incapable of dominating or persecuting their inventors. We may find out. Yet we may never find out.
Right now, some AI’s avoid shutdown, but this may have little to do with a conscious intention to survive. The problem is that we have difficulty defining our own consciousness. We’re simply aware, and we’re aware that we are aware. We have difficulties measuring the sentience of nonhuman organisms on earth. It may never be possible to determine whether AI evolves into a volitional being.
Right now, the most dangerous intelligence with which we are confronted is neither extraterrestrial nor artificial in origin. It is human. All too very human. If you read my book, Fermi’s Paradox: An Inquiry into the Ends of Civilization, you’ll find that we’ve really reached a seminal point – or rather several tipping points – in human and perhaps natural history. There are too many of us, all trying to live a lifestyle which the world biome cannot sustain. Wars are being waged over resources. Evolution produced us, and we yielded AI, which is also being warred over in the sense that an intense competition is rolling out the technology before we really know its impact. It will degrade our energy resources yet further, and deploy possibly unsafe technologies in the process. Most profoundly, we are falling for a delusion alive since the excesses of the Industrial Age were first realized: that human ingenuity can solve the near-apocalyptic problems brought about by human inventiveness in the first place. In this, AI will prove the ultimate gamble. We are, as they say in poker, pot committed. Our investment in this fallacy of sunk costs has never been greater. As a nation, as a world civilization, as a species, we’re betting everything that science and tech can solve the problems brought on by science and tech.
I believe that we are the problem. In a heady age of hubris, Fermi’s Paradox explores what may be humanity’s final chapter. It also explores some alternatives to betting the farm on the proposition that the fields can produce yet more. Fermis’ Paradox: An Inquiry into the Ends of Civilization, is available for free on this website. Just go to the Books section. I thought the problem so grave, and humanity so near collapse, that it should offered for free.
© 2025 by Michael C. Just