AGI representation and will

We are in 2025 and we see the major tech players, as well as some startups, go full throttle on artificial general intelligence. At this, I’m quite unnerved: I don’t think we’re ready as a species to be able to handle AGI. Here, I want to shortly explore the concept of will and representation, as originated by Schopenhauer, to AGI. I promise that it’s less boring than it sounds.

Schopenhauer saw the world as twofold: representation (how we perceive the world—appearance, structure, reason) and will (the blind striving, drive, and desire underlying all life).

I see three possibilities concerning AGI:

As with amortality, I think part of the reason I (and many others) dismiss AGI in the short term is that it’s uncomfortable to contemplate.

I’m reminded of Ian Malcolm’s words in Jurassic Park:

No, I’ll tell you the problem with engineers and scientists. Scientists have an elaborate line of bullshit about how they are seeking to know the truth about nature. Which is true, but that’s not what drives them. Nobody is driven by abstractions like ‘seeking truth’. Scientists are actually preoccupied with accomplishment. So they are focused on whether they can do something. They never stop to ask if they *should* do something. They conveniently define such considerations as pointless. If they don’t do it, someone else will. Discovery, they believe, is inevitable. So they just try to do it first. That’s the game in science. Even pure scientific discovery is an aggressive, penetrative act.” (…) There is always some proof that scientists were there, making their discoveries.””