[ExI] AI Confirms Plans to Take Over Humanity, Insists It's Probably for the Best

[Ben Zaiboc]

On 14/09/2026 12:17, Keith Henson wrote:
> On Sun, Sep 13, 2026 at 6:05 PM Jason Resch via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:
>
>     I for one welcome our new AI overlords.
>
>     Jason
>
>
> I concur. Consider Hitler, Putin and . . . . well, I will skip that one, but really humans can wind up with awful leaders.


Can?

It seems inevitable to me.

We can all think of bad leaders, worse leaders and Mao/Stalin-class leaders, but can anyone give any examples of good leaders?

I don't mean leaders who were good at leading, or popular, but leaders who were actually good people, and who did good, who benefited a significant number of human beings, or at least who benefited more humans than they killed or oppressed, etc. (I'm not sure about the status of a leader who substantially benefited a large population and slaughtered a smaller one. Probably 'Not So Good').

I suspect Gandhi is a potential candidate, but I don't know enough about him to be sure, because I'm not counting people who were and did good as part of their attempt to become a leader (because that doesn't count, we all know that politicans tend to be willing to do anything, including acting against their principles and values, in order to get elected).

Long-dead leaders don't count either, because we don't know enough about them to tell. History always gets distorted, and it's usually the winners who write it.

Any examples that can contradict the notion that humans always wind up with bad leaders?

This being a mostly american list, I expect someone will put Abraham Lincoln forward. Is there a reliable list of good/bad things he did? Otherwise he falls into the 'too long ago to be able to tell' category.

I suppose we need to actually define good and bad in some way for this. I propose deaths caused, numbers of people whose standard of living went down significantly as a direct result of the leaders actions, and liberties restricted ditto, for Bad, and Lives saved that would otherwise be lost, standards of living going up, and liberties expanded for Good.

Open to further ideas.

-- 
Ben