π€ AI Summary
This study addresses whether existential or civilization-collapse risks posed by advanced artificial intelligence necessarily depend on consciousness and malice. To investigate this, the project constructs a systematic failure-mode assessment framework that integrates causal conditional analysis with intermediate-variable quantification to identify non-conscious risk interaction pathways, such as autonomous misalignment and malicious use. The work demonstrates that catastrophic risks do not require consciousness as a prerequisite. It establishes a multidimensional risk taxonomy encompassing capabilities and autonomy, elucidates the mechanisms through which these dimensions influence risk severity, and proposes a research agenda for non-operationalizable defense strategies. Collectively, these contributions provide novel theoretical foundations for AI safety governance.
π Abstract
This article develops a failure-mode framework for analyzing how advanced artificial intelligence could contribute to human extinction, irreversible civilizational collapse, or permanent human disempowerment. The central thesis is that catastrophic AI risk does not require consciousness, hostility, or an explicit intention to harm humanity. Instead, risk may arise through several distinct but interacting pathways, including autonomous misalignment, harmful human use, organizational failure, and competitive deployment. The severity of these pathways depends on factors such as capability, autonomy, external access, persistence, institutional safeguards, and the preservation of recovery capacity. The analysis is deliberately non-operational: it identifies causal conditions, empirically tractable intermediate quantities, and defensive research questions rather than procedures for causing harm.