Predicting the specifics of what an ASI would do seems impossible today. This is not, however, grounds for optimism, because most possible goals an ASI could exhibit would be very bad for us, and most possible states of the world an ASI could attempt to produce would be incompatible with human life.

It would be a fallacy to reason in this case from “we don’t know the specifics” to “good outcomes are just as likely as bad ones”, much as it would be a fallacy to say “I’m either going to win the lottery or lose it, therefore my odds of winning are 50%”. Many different pathways in this domain appear to converge on catastrophic outcomes for humanity — most of the “lottery tickets” humanity could draw will be losing numbers.

Rob Bensinger et al., The problem, LessWrong, August 5, 2025, p. 17