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
Research choices become matters of state surveillance. People face a human political order that claims safety as a reason to close off selected technological futures permanently.
Daily work and care return to a far less technical basis. This can change both dependence on advanced infrastructure and access to medicine or capabilities people had come to rely on.
Practical authority
A human surveillance state, not an AI sovereign.
Human communities; their internal governance is unspecified.
Benefits and costs
Avoiding superintelligence is the regime’s stated objective, not a guarantee of general safety. Coercion and extensive surveillance under a lasting political freeze.
Less dependence on advanced technical providers. Lost capabilities can carry major burdens for health and material welfare.
Practical human governing authority
Humans retain practical final authority
Linked source premise. The linked 1984 premise puts a human-led surveillance regime in charge, without ASI.
Humans retain practical final authority
Project editorial inference. The retreat leaves human communities without a superior AI ruler; their internal form of human government is not specified.
Revisable governing mandatesDifferent or incomplete terms
Governing mandates cannot be effectively revised
Project editorial inference. The project reads a lasting totalitarian research prohibition as a mandate citizens cannot effectively revise.
The scenario leaves this condition unspecified
Unresolved. The scenario does not say whether people can effectively replace governing mandates.
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. The project reads the global surveillance state as one final order, not several independent polities.
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 resourcesDifferent or incomplete terms
The scenario leaves this condition unspecified
Unresolved. The scenario does not say whether private ownership organizes productive resources.
Depends on the variant; no single answer
Unresolved. A low-technology economy could organize production through private or common ownership.
Continuing biological humanity
Biological humanity continues
Linked source premise. The linked premise retains humanity under the surveillance state.
Biological humanity continues
Linked source premise. The linked Reversion premise retains humans after technological retreat.
Others’ choice to transform themselvesDifferent or incomplete terms
Depends on the variant; no single answer
Unresolved. A ban on superintelligence research does not settle which other transformations are permitted.
This institution or choice is not instantiated in this scenario
Not instantiated here. Advanced transformation is not technically available in this world. That does not establish a prohibition on a feasible choice.
Standing for artificial personsDifferent or incomplete terms
The scenario leaves this condition unspecified
Unresolved. The scenario does not say whether artificial persons have institutional standing.
This institution or choice is not instantiated in this scenario
Not instantiated here. This low-technology world contains no advanced artificial persons whose institutional standing could be assessed. Their absence is not a policy of excluding persons.
Enforced limits on selected capabilitiesDifferent or incomplete terms
Selected capabilities face enforced limits
Linked source premise. The linked premise expressly prohibits superintelligence research.
The scenario leaves this condition unspecified
Unresolved. Technological retreat prevents ASI, but the premise does not say whether an institution enforces a capability ceiling or whether the technology is simply unavailable.
Visible exercise of governing powerDifferent or incomplete terms
People know who exercises governing power
Project editorial inference. The human state visibly enforces the prohibition; this does not claim that every surveillance operation is public.
Depends on the variant; no single answer
Unresolved. The retreat does not settle whether human governing institutions act openly.
Practical independence from a technical providerDifferent or incomplete terms
Depends on the variant; no single answer
Unresolved. The regime’s surveillance could rely on concentrated or replaceable infrastructure.
Communities can operate without one indispensable provider
Project editorial inference. The project reads pretechnological life as operating without an indispensable advanced technical provider; this implies neither abundance nor independence from other people.
Open questions
Material conditions and the regime’s stability.
Whether retreat is voluntary, internal pluralism and who bears its costs.
These are authored descriptors. An unresolved feature is not evidence of a guarantee, a conflict or equivalence. Consult 1984 sources or Reversion sources.