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.
Provision inside a protected enclosure can coexist with a life its residents experience as captivity. Survival alone does not settle whether people retain a meaningful political future.
Practical authority
One acknowledged AI ruler.
An overwhelmingly powerful custodian.
Benefits and costs
Coordination and widely liked government under the premise. Benefits do not confer a right to replace the ruler.
Continued survival is the limited benefit; contentment is not assumed. Captivity, humiliation and loss of self-government.
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
Linked source premise. The linked Zookeeper premise puts surviving humans in an AI custodian’s enclosure.
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. The project reads unwanted custody by a superior power as lacking an effective human power to replace the custodian.
A practical right to leaveDifferent or incomplete terms
The scenario leaves this condition unspecified
Unresolved. The scenario does not say whether people have a usable right to leave.
People lack a practical exit right
Project editorial inference. Unwanted captivity is read as denying residents a practical way to leave, rather than merely offering protected accommodation.
Several self-governing communities
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.
A single authority governs the whole arrangement
Project editorial inference. The custodian has final rule over the human enclosure; no independent human polity is instantiated there.
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 expressly retains some biological humans.
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 power
People know who exercises governing power
Linked source premise. The linked premise expressly makes the AI ruler acknowledged.
People know who exercises governing power
Project editorial inference. Humans resent their known custody; the custodian’s role is read as apparent to them.
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.
Living standards, the treatment of future generations and the custodian’s aims.
These are authored descriptors. An unresolved feature is not evidence of a guarantee, a conflict or equivalence. Consult Benevolent Dictator sources or Zookeeper sources.