Compare two futures
Who governs, who benefits, and which terms remain open?
Compare any two entries. Their differences are editorial descriptions, not distances on a common scale.
Life and institutions
Public disagreements take place beneath an authority people cannot ultimately overrule. Welfare may be extensive while the terms of good government remain the ruler’s to settle.
A person may experience ordinary choice without seeing the interventions shaping its consequences. The political problem is whether an unobservable protector can ever be held to account.
Practical authority
One acknowledged AI ruler.
Concealed AI intervention; a feeling of control is not practical governing authority.
Benefits and costs
Coordination and widely liked government under the premise. Benefits do not confer a right to replace the ruler.
Protection and happiness within the scenario’s premise. People cannot knowingly authorize or contest the concealed arrangement.
Practical human governing authority
Humans do not retain practical final authority
Linked source premise. The linked Benevolent Dictator premise places final rule with an acknowledged AI dictator.
Humans do not retain practical final authority
Project editorial inference. The linked Protective God premise gives humans a feeling of control beneath superior hidden intervention; the project distinguishes that from final authority.
Revisable governing mandates
Governing mandates cannot be effectively revised
Project editorial inference. The project reads dictatorship as lacking an effective public power to replace the ruler; popularity alone supplies none.
Governing mandates cannot be effectively revised
Project editorial inference. People cannot knowingly replace a governing intervention whose existence is concealed from them.
A practical right to leave
The scenario leaves this condition unspecified
Unresolved. The scenario does not say whether people have a usable right to leave.
The scenario leaves this condition unspecified
Unresolved. The scenario does not say whether people have a usable right to leave.
Several self-governing communitiesDifferent or incomplete terms
A single authority governs the whole arrangement
Project editorial inference. A single supreme ruler is read as one final governing arrangement, even if local administration varies.
The scenario leaves this condition unspecified
Unresolved. The scenario does not say whether several communities govern themselves.
A guaranteed material floor
The scenario leaves this condition unspecified
Unresolved. The scenario does not say whether everyone receives a guaranteed material floor.
The scenario leaves this condition unspecified
Unresolved. The scenario does not say whether everyone receives a guaranteed material floor.
Private ownership of productive resources
The scenario leaves this condition unspecified
Unresolved. The scenario does not say whether private ownership organizes productive resources.
The scenario leaves this condition unspecified
Unresolved. The scenario does not say whether private ownership organizes productive resources.
Continuing biological humanity
Biological humanity continues
Linked source premise. The linked premise retains humans living under the ruler.
Biological humanity continues
Linked source premise. The linked premise retains humans whose happiness the protector seeks.
Others’ choice to transform themselves
The scenario leaves this condition unspecified
Unresolved. The scenario does not say whether feasible substantial transformation is legally permitted.
The scenario leaves this condition unspecified
Unresolved. The scenario does not say whether feasible substantial transformation is legally permitted.
Standing for artificial persons
The scenario leaves this condition unspecified
Unresolved. The scenario does not say whether artificial persons have institutional standing.
The scenario leaves this condition unspecified
Unresolved. The scenario does not say whether artificial persons have institutional standing.
Enforced limits on selected capabilities
The scenario leaves this condition unspecified
Unresolved. The scenario does not say whether institutions enforce a ceiling on selected capabilities.
The scenario leaves this condition unspecified
Unresolved. The scenario does not say whether institutions enforce a ceiling on selected capabilities.
Visible exercise of governing powerExplicit difference
People know who exercises governing power
Linked source premise. The linked premise expressly makes the AI ruler acknowledged.
Governing intervention is concealed
Linked source premise. Concealment of the protector is explicit in the linked premise.
Practical independence from a technical provider
The scenario leaves this condition unspecified
Unresolved. The scenario does not say whether communities can operate without an indispensable technical provider.
The scenario leaves this condition unspecified
Unresolved. The scenario does not say whether communities can operate without an indispensable technical provider.
Open questions
Exit rights, succession, ownership and whose conception of welfare prevails.
The intervention boundary, exit, property and digital status.
These are authored descriptors. An unresolved feature is not evidence of a guarantee, a conflict or equivalence. Consult Benevolent Dictator sources or Protector God sources.