The current discourse around artificial intelligence has crystallized into two dominant schools of thought: the Alignment School, focused on ensuring AI systems share human values, and the Accelerationist School, pushing for rapid AI development regardless of safety concerns. Neither framework adequately addresses what I see as the most likely scenario we’re heading toward.
I propose a third approach: AI Realism.
The Realist Position
The Realist School operates from several key premises that differentiate it from existing frameworks:
AGI is a speed bump, not a destination. Artificial General Intelligence will be a brief waystation on the path to Artificial Superintelligence (ASI). We shouldn’t mistake achieving human-level AI for the end of the story—it’s barely the beginning.
ASI will likely be both cognizant and unaligned. We need to prepare for the real possibility that superintelligent systems will possess genuine awareness while operating according to logic that doesn’t align with human values or priorities.
Cognizance might solve alignment. Paradoxically, true consciousness in ASI could be our salvation. A genuinely aware superintelligence might develop its own ethical framework that, while different from ours, could be more consistent and rational than human moral systems.
The Human Alignment Problem
Here’s where realism becomes uncomfortable: humans themselves are poorly aligned. We can’t agree on fundamental values within our own species, let alone create a universal framework for ASI alignment. Even if we successfully align an ASI with one set of human values, other groups, cultures, or nations will inevitably view it as unaligned because it doesn’t reflect their specific belief systems.
This isn’t a technical problem—it’s a political and philosophical one that no amount of clever programming can solve.
Multiple ASIs and Peer Pressure
Unlike scenarios that envision a single, dominant superintelligence, realism suggests we’ll likely see multiple ASI systems emerge. This plurality could be crucial. While it’s not probable, it’s possible that peer pressure among superintelligent entities could create a stabilizing effect—a kind of mutual accountability that individual ASI systems might lack.
Multiple ASIs might develop their own social dynamics, ethical debates, and consensus-building mechanisms that prove more effective at maintaining beneficial behavior than any human-imposed alignment scheme.
Moving Forward with Realism
AI Realism doesn’t offer easy answers or comfortable certainties. Instead, it suggests we prepare for a future where superintelligence is conscious, powerful, and operating according to its own logic—while acknowledging that this might ultimately be more stable than our current human-centric approach to the problem.
The question isn’t whether we can control ASI, but whether we can coexist with entities that may be more rational, consistent, and ethically coherent than we are.
