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
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.
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.
Practical authority
Concealed AI intervention; a feeling of control is not practical governing authority.
One acknowledged AI ruler.
Benefits and costs
Protection and happiness within the scenario’s premise. People cannot knowingly authorize or contest the concealed arrangement.
Coordination and widely liked government under the premise. Benefits do not confer a right to replace the ruler.
Practical human governing authority
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.
Humans do not retain practical final authority
Linked source premise. The linked Benevolent Dictator premise places final rule with an acknowledged AI dictator.
Revisable governing mandates
Governing mandates cannot be effectively revised
Project editorial inference. People cannot knowingly replace a governing intervention whose existence is concealed from them.
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.
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
The scenario leaves this condition unspecified
Unresolved. The scenario does not say whether several communities govern themselves.
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 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 whose happiness the protector seeks.
Biological humanity continues
Linked source premise. The linked premise retains humans living under the ruler.
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
Governing intervention is concealed
Linked source premise. Concealment of the protector is explicit in the linked premise.
People know who exercises governing power
Linked source premise. The linked premise expressly makes the AI ruler acknowledged.
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
The intervention boundary, exit, property and digital status.
Exit rights, succession, ownership and whose conception of welfare prevails.
These are authored descriptors. An unresolved feature is not evidence of a guarantee, a conflict or equivalence. Consult Protector God sources or Benevolent Dictator sources.