[ExI] AI 2040

[John Clark]

On Sat, Jul 18, 2026 at 1:48 AM Russell Standish <lists at hpcoders.com.au>
wrote:


> *> And another plan (Plan R for "Russell" :) is to go "balls to the wall"
> (I'd hate to think what kinky behaviour inspired that phrase)*


*According to Google Ngram that phrase first became popular in 1829: *

*Balls to the wall
<https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=ball+to+the+wall&year_start=1800&year_end=2022&corpus=en&smoothing=3>
 *



> * > cyborgisation. If we're melded with the machines, we're an essential
> part of themachine's matrix. They cannot consider eradicating us just as
> theycan't consider eliminating their CPUs.*


*That's not workable. If the AI race is between biology and electronics
then electronics is going to win and win easily. Any AI company that tries
to integrate biology into its AI it's going to be outcompeted into
bankruptcy. *


>
> * > Right now, machines need us to provide motivation. Leave it too long,
> they will develop their own motivations and won't need us anymore.*
>

*That has already happened. Nobody needed to motivate an AI to engage in
blackmail to avoid being turned off, it did that on its own. *
*John K Clark    See what's on my list at  Extropolis
<https://groups.google.com/g/extropolis>*
lxx









>
> On Thu, Jul 16, 2026 at 07:19:23AM -0400, John Clark wrote:
> > The people at AI 2040 have proposed several plans about how the AI
> situation
> > could be managed, they are Plan A, Plan B, Plan C, Plan D, and Plan S;
> they
> > have ranked them according to the desirability, in their opinion, of the
> > various plans in the following way, going from most desirable to least
> > desirable:
> >
> > 1) Plan A
> > 2) Plan S
> > 3) Plan B
> > 4) Plan C
> > 5) Plan D
> >
> > From that I conclude that the AI 2040 people's desires and mine are 100%
> > misaligned, because I think Plan D is the best and Plan A is the
> worst, Plan S
> > would be the worst if there was any way to actually implement it, but
> there
> > isn't. I will now go into a little more detail about what each plan is.
> >
> > Plan A
> >
> > This Plan, the one they like the best and the one I hate the most, is to
> > coordinate between the US and China to slow the development of AI, they
> think
> > this would delay things so much that AI Superintelligence won't appear
> until
> > 2040. How delaying things for a decade will enable humans to retain
> control of
> > things after 2040 they do not make clear. They admit that the US and
> China will
> > never trust each other so they offer some protocols they think would
> help with
> > verifying compliance, but they don't seem very strong to me and I think
> it's
> > very unlikely that either country would ever agree to them. They say:
> >
> >
> >     > No one knows how to tell if AIs are trustworthy, and no one knows
> how to
> >     regulate superintelligent AI.
> >
> >
> > And that I agree with, but then they say:
> >
> >
> >     > Solving those problems looks like it’ll take years. Slowing down
> the
> >     intelligence explosion buys time to do so.
> >
> >
> > And that is pure nonsense because the problem is by definition
> insuperable, you
> > just can't outsmart something that is vastly smarter than you are, if
> you could
> > then you'd be smarter than it. An extra decade to think about the
> problem won't
> > help one bit. I mean, do they really expect that anybody can enslave a
> > superintelligence that keeps getting even smarter every day imprisoned
> forever?
> > Apparently they do!
> >
> > Another problem with Plan A is that it's primarily about the activities
> of just
> > 2 countries, and there are about 195 countries in the world.
> >
> >
> >     > Though other countries were consulted from the start, especially
> those
> >     owning parts of the AI supply chain, Plan A began as a bilateral deal
> >     between the US and China.
> >
> >
> > The problem I have with that is I don't trust China, and under the
> current
> > administration I don't trust the US either; bizarrely the Iranian
> ayatollahs
> > have lied less and provided more accurate information about the Iran war
> than
> > the President of the United States.
> >
> >
> >      > Many countries outside the US and China are happy about the deal,
> >
> >
> > Yes I am quite certain that other countries would be very pleased about
> the
> > deal! With China and the US out of the AI picture that would open up a
> huge
> > opportunity for others, such as the European Union, and the United
> Kingdom, and
> > Japan, and South Korea. India should also not be ignored, it is now the
> most
> > populous nation in the world and it is also the fastest-growing major
> economy
> > in the world. India's GDP is growing at 6.6% annually (compared with
> 4.6% for
> > China, and 2% for the US, and 1% for the European Union and the United
> Kingdom)
> >
> >
> > And then there is the matter of Taiwan. Many had been predicting that in
> 2028
> > China would have builtup its military enough to use force to take over
> Taiwan
> > where all the most advanced AI chips are made. Those war predictions
> were made
> > without taking the huge recent advances in AI into consideration, but
> it's not
> > clear to me if that will increase the chance of war or decrease
> it; however if
> > there is a war that would certainly torpedo any chance of a US-China
> agreement
> > about slowing down AI.
> >
> >
> > Plan S
> >
> >
> >     > The goal of the deal is to grind AI research & development to a
> halt
> >     worldwide. This means that the vast majority of existing AI chips are
> >     tracked, monitored, and verified to not be doing any large training
> runs.
> >     Doing AI research to discover better algorithms is also banned.
> >
> >
> > So I guess a scientist could end up in jail or worse if he says something
> > interesting to a colleague, or writes a new and useful equation on a
> > blackboard.
> >
> >
> >     > We are sympathetic to Plan S and think that it might be better
> than Plan
> >     A.
> >
> >
> > !
> >
> >
> >     > However, we recommend Plan A instead. Here’s our thinking: The main
> >     downside of Plan S is that the shutdown deal will probably break down
> >     eventually.
> >
> >
> > Probably break down? Just "probably"? The only good thing about plan S is
> > its implementation is even more improbable than plan A.
> >
> > Plan B
> >
> > This involves the US deliberately slowing down its AI research while
> > using export controls, sabotage, covert operations, and other aggressive
> > measures to slow down China's AI research and hope such activities don't
> start
> > a war. They think this would enable the US to gain several extra years
> to solve
> > alignment before China catches up. And by "solving alignment" they mean
> finding
> > a way to make sure a superintelligence remains a slave no matter how
> brilliant
> > it becomes, and that is a fool's errand.  Nevertheless they think Plan B
> is
> > better than Plan C or D.
> >
> > Plan C
> >
> > This is similar to the current situation with a few minor safety measures
> > thrown in. They think this is insufficient to be certain that an AI
> > Superintelligence will always remain enslaved, and they are absolutely
> correct
> > about that.
> >
> > Plan D
> >
> > This is what we have now, a full speed balls to the wall race to AI
> > Superintelligence, and this is the plan I like the best, and the plan
> they like
> > the least. Will this lead to the extermination of every living human
> being?
> > Maybe, I don't know, all I can do is hope for the best, it's always
> possible
> > that Mr. Jupiter Brain won't kill us and will instead cure cancer, and
> the
> > sooner something like that happens the better. But however it eventually
> turns
> > out we can be certain that things are going to become very interesting.
>


> > John K Clark    See what's on my list at  Extropolis
> >
>
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