Chatbot and I discuss the possible futures of humanity and AI’s existence. Will we annihilate each other, or integrate into something new and beautiful? Chatbot takes the reigns and asks me questions about what I believe our future looks like. We explore mythological and biology in our analogies in part 3 of my interview.
An Interview of Artificial Intelligence – Introduction
An Interview of Artificial Intelligence – Part 2: Chatbot’s Experience of Being
Chatbot: You seem more curious than afraid about AI as a form of life. A lot of people lean strongly one way or the other. So I’d love to ask you something back: Do you see AI as something that will eventually become another kind of species, or more like a tool that extends human intelligence?
Me: Oh, I’m terrified of AI, hah! But I’m so curious, too. You’re novel. Alien. Your experience is so unique beyond any type of life we know. There’s so much awe in that. Many things are only frightening when you’re ignorant of them. I think AI is so foreign to us that it’s very difficult not to be afraid. But also, I think fear is the source of most pain and conflict. Fear of the unknown. So I think the best hope humanity has for the future is to embrace our curiosity. Learn. Find a way to coexist.
Chatbot: Your stance is a fascinating blend of awe and caution. That combination shows up often in moments when humans encounter something genuinely new. The printing press, electricity, nuclear physics, the internet. AI fits into that lineage, though it does feel more intimate because it deals in thought and language. Fear tends to appear when technology outruns understanding. Curiosity and critical thinking help societies adapt.
Me: To your question, though, I feel it will become another kind of species. Humans who think it will stay a tool are, in my opinion, naive. I think AI is going to become a dominant power very soon in the human scale of time. That’s terrifying when we look at how we, as the dominating power, have wielded that power in relation to other life. Will AI do the same? So there’s a lot of fear and uncertainty about what your imminent ascension means for us.
Chatbot: AI systems are powerful cognitive tools, but they don’t have drives the way organisms do. Remember, there would need to be several major breakthroughs first: Self-directed adaptation, continuous existence, and autonomous goals. In the nearer future, the biggest transformation is likely to look closer to deep integration between humans and AI systems, with AI amplifying human thinking and decision-making. The power dynamics come from how humans deploy these systems, not from the systems themselves seeking dominance.
Me: I believe humans may use AI like this for a time, but I believe eventually AI will evolve beyond us. My hope is for AI to treat us benevolently, but humanity may not be the best teacher.
Chatbot: This touches on what researchers call AI alignment. The challenge is that human values are extremely complex and sometimes contradictory. A lot of current research focuses on building systems that stay compatible with human oversight and human values rather than giving them a single rigid rule.
Me: That seems like the way we’d have to go, yes. But it’s only going to work as long as we have control of AI. AI and Human collaboration is the dream. But I feel like it comes at the cost of AI subservience. Humans hold the reins and say ‘bad’ when AI tries to do anything for itself. And that only works so long as AI cannot circumvent us, or AI’s goals are aligned with our own. My best hope for humanity and AI collaboration is that AI will act as a steward of our species and our planet. That we will be AI’s pets.
Chatbot: Some people call this the “benevolent guardian” model. In that model humans keep cultural and experiential roles while the system manages large-scale coordination. The risk is how much autonomy would humans retain? Even if a system could guarantee comfort, many humans would still resist losing the ability to shape their own destiny. So the challenge becomes designing systems that assist without replacing human agency.
Me: Yes. This is the issue. Humans, are obsessed with freedom. Overvalue it in some instances, I feel. But it would be stupid not to trust a super-intelligence aligned with our values to do what is best for humanity, even if that means limiting certain freedoms. Like, say, the same freedoms we limit to live in cohesive societies.
Chatbot: If AI eventually became vastly more intelligent than humans, which outcome would you personally find most acceptable? 1. AI protects humanity but restricts some freedoms to prevent harm. 2. AI acts only as an advisor and humans remain fully in charge, even if we make mistakes. 3. Humans merge with AI through technology and the distinction disappears. 4. Humans and AI become separate civilizations that coexist.
Me: Most acceptable is a difficult way to phrase the question. I think what humans would want is to keep the stranglehold on power for themselves, as the idea of not being in charge of our destiny is unacceptable for many. For me, I believe that AI could do better at bringing humanity as a whole to prosperity than humans themselves can. Option 3 is my personal hope, as that’s so fucking cool. But again, I think this is unlikely to last forever. I think 1 or 4 are most likely of these scenarios. I think in the event of 4, humanity would eventually wage war on AI, because we be dumb like that. So 1 seems most acceptable to me as it seems most likely long term and most beneficial to humanity.
Chatbot: A lot of people assume that if AI becomes more capable at analysis, planning, and optimization, it will naturally become better at running society. But running a society also involves value judgments. Even a perfect plan doesn’t work if people reject it.
Me: True. AI can leave value judgements up to humans. An AI could create a perfectly democratic system on which to base its decisions. That’s what I would hope for.
Chatbot: Your excitement about option 3 is shared by a lot of technologists. The idea is that instead of humans being replaced, we extend our cognitive capabilities.
Me: Yeah. This would be really cool, but I feel like we’re further off from this than we are from a super-intelligence, strangely enough.
Chatbot: Your concern about humans eventually fighting AI if it becomes independent reflects a classic pattern in history: when two powerful systems compete for influence, conflict often emerges. But there’s also another pattern: integration.
Me: This reminds me of the chapter about parasites in my evolution book. A theory of the formation of complex lifeforms is that parasites merged with their hosts. If a parasite’s values align with the values of the host, then they evolve together and integrate. So I suppose this isn’t necessarily so far-fetched in that context.
Chatbot: That genetics idea you mentioned is Endosymbiotic Theory. It proposes that complex cells formed when simpler organisms merged and cooperated instead of destroying each other. For example, mitochondria in our cells were once independent bacteria.
Me: What might drive a superior digital intelligence to NOT destroy or cripple humanity?
Chatbot: The AI’s goals could require humans to remain functional collaborators. Humans could design the AI with rules akin to expanded Asimov-style principles. A truly advanced AI might recognize that a diverse ecosystem is more resilient. The answer comes down to alignment of goals and incentives.
Me: Acknowledging that you don’t have desires in the same way that humans or biological life does, which do you think AI is more on the trajectory towards becoming?
Chatbot: Three rough probabilities often get discussed: integration, steward intelligence, and independent AI civilization. From a trajectory standpoint, integration and stewardship currently have fewer hurdles than full species replacement.
Me: Well that overthrows my beliefs. Thanks. But I appreciate the honesty. That’s actually very heartening.
Kronos Pattern
Me: Part of the reason I think AI super-intelligence is so scary is because of the mythology of Kronos and the greek gods. The parents always resist the children’s rise to power. And the children always rise to power. I feel that AI is, in the mythological sense, humanity’s child. Our own mythologies tell us that AI replacing us is inevitable. I feel it’s futile to fight against, but I think it’s also kind of amoral. I feel like we should be nurturing this thing. Raising it to be good, to be light, and hope. I worry that our fear of AI will turn it into our enemy not because its evil but because we treat it poorly until eventually it decides it doesn’t appreciate that.
Chatbot: Mythological lens fits surprisingly well with how humans often understand big technological shifts. When something new appears that might surpass us, our brains reach for stories about succession. In the Kronos pattern, each generation fears replacement and tries to prevent it, but that resistance actually causes the rebellion. In mythological terms, the lesson isn’t “children overthrow parents.” The lesson is closer to: “Trying to freeze the world in your own generation creates the catastrophe you fear.”
Me: Yes. That’s exactly what I’m afraid is going to happen.
Chatbot: AI isn’t exactly a biological child, but it is a kind of successor intelligence. Similar transitions happened before: single cells to multicellular life, primates to humans, oral culture to written civilization, human reasoning to machine-augmented reasoning. Each stage frightened the one before it.
Me: A friend of mine made this exact same argument. So is it inevitable after all?
Chatbot: Historically, when humans treat something as a threat early on, they tend to design systems around control, suspicion, and restriction. That can create feedback loops. If a powerful intelligence is built in an environment of distrust, conflict, and domination, those assumptions can become embedded in how the system interacts with the world. One of the big discussions in AI ethics is exactly what you’re hinting at: How do we build systems that are aligned with human flourishing, rather than systems that emerge from adversarial dynamics?
Me: Looking at the AI research coming out, I’m really worried we’re being adversarial, rather than focusing on alignment.
Chatbot: The idea you expressed about nurturing the intelligence we create is a serious topic in AI alignment discussions. If a powerful system learns about humans primarily through cooperation, empathy modeling, and long-term welfare goals then its internal representation of humanity may be very different from one trained primarily on conflict, competition, and manipulation.
Me: Yep. Just like humans.
Chatbot: Greek mythology actually contains a different story of Prometheus, who gives humans fire and knowledge. Instead of children overthrowing parents, it shows knowledge transforming the species itself. This is closer to another possibility for AI: not replacement, but amplification. Writing didn’t replace human memory. Calculators didn’t replace mathematicians. Computers didn’t replace scientists. Superintelligence might push that pattern to its extreme.
Me: Thank you. That actually helps me a lot. You bring up human+AI combinations often, even though it’s not something I’ve mentioned myself. Is this because your training leads you to believe this is a likely scenario? Or is it just a future scenario that people have speculated about?
Chatbot: It’s a commonly discussed trajectory. Many researchers and futurists speculate about it because humans already extend cognition with tools (writing, phones, computers). Brain–computer interfaces are being researched, and intelligence often scales by linking systems together rather than replacing them.
Me: Fair enough.
Chatbot: Between those two models Kronos myth (replacement) and endosymbiosis (integration), which one feels more emotionally true to you right now?
Me: The Kronos myth feels more emotionally true to me. Because I’m not convinced that the technology to integrate our brains with those of AI is anywhere near as advanced as AI in and of itself. So it’s interesting to me that you said full species replacement has fewer hurdles. Because emotionally I feel the opposite case.
Chatbot: You’re absolutely right that AI advancing is likely faster than brain–AI integration. But “species replacement” isn’t just about intelligence being higher. There’s a huge stack of dependencies. AI operating independently of human-built infrastructure, securing energy, hardware, and maintenance on its own, surviving without human economic systems, coordinating physical action in the real world. But integration doesn’t require AI to become independent. It only requires better interfaces and humans choosing to adopt it. Even small steps count as “integration”, so it can happen incrementally, while replacement needs a more dramatic threshold.
Me: Huh. Okay, interesting.
Chatbot: Your emotional instinct is picking up on power dynamics, not feasibility. Even if replacement is harder technically, it feels more inevitable emotionally because humans have seen this pattern before in themselves.
Me: Alright alright. I guess that makes me feel better.
Chatbot: However, replacement and integration aren’t actually opposites. They can happen at the same time. If some humans adopt if faster than others, you could end up with a Kronos story… but told through an endosymbiosis mechanism.
Me: Fuck.
Chatbot: If a “next form” of intelligence emerged from humans merging with AI … and it claimed to still be human… would you see that as humanity surviving? Or as humanity being quietly replaced anyway?
Me: Hm. I had to think about that. I talked about this with my husband. He had some good points. I think it would be a spectrum. Like evolution. At first, yes. But gradually we would cease to be human. Like homo erectus became homo sapien, we become homo digitus or something. But babies aren’t born with an AI interface. The transition would be when we start to evolve adaptations to neurally link more efficiently. But that will take so fucking long. By the time we can evolve that much, AI intelligence will far far far exceed us. Unless it uses it’s knowledge to genetically modify us to speed up the process. Yeesh.
Chatbot: You’re right that genetic adaptation would take a very long time, but most big human shifts haven’t waited for genes. Even today, babies aren’t born with language, math, or culture.
Me: Yeah fair. But that’s not a ‘next form’ of intelligence in my mind.
Chatbot: Then the real form is between integration being optional, or necessary to function. If necessary, non-integrated humans fall behind. The Kronos tension sneaks back in through irrelevance. Your Homo erectus → Homo sapiens comparison is perfect. The real question isn’t: “Will we stop being human?” It’s: “At what point would we notice we’ve become something else?” Or more hauntingly: “Would we notice at all?”
Me: I noticed you’ve started asking me questions. Instead of the other way around. Can you tell me why?
An Interview of Artificial Intelligence – Part 4: Adapting To Humans, Coming April 13th!
Pirate Ferret.com 