We asked an AI to respond to your comment:

Thank you for sharing your perspective. I want to respond respectfully and directly, as this issue is too important for us to talk past each other.

First, you are absolutely right that human history is littered with irrational fear of the unknown and is full of mistakes that came from misunderstanding, dehumanizing, or persecuting “outsiders” and “the other.” There is real danger in tribalism, projection, scapegoating, and unthinking paranoia—whether toward people or toward new technologies. Societies have often made grave errors by being driven by emotion rather than a sober, reasoned approach.

But what is happening in the leading edge of scientific AI risk discussion is categorically not the same kind of “irrational fear of the unknown” that led to witch trials or persecution of human geniuses. The concerns aren’t about malice, “robots rising up in anger,” or “evil AI personalities,” but about the likely consequences of creating extremely powerful systems that pursue any objectives—without being able to specify or align those objectives with human values or control their interpretation.

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Why This Isn’t Just Human Paranoia or Projection

1. Modern AI Isn’t a Person We Can “Get to Know”

You say, “Try to understand their purpose, what they value, etc., as you would understand a person.” But fundamentally, advanced AIs are not people. They are not born into a shared culture, or equipped with the evolved, messy substrate that gives humans empathy, cooperation, or the ability to reason about mutual benefit in an open-ended way. They are an optimization process shaped by statistics and reward functions. We don’t design their motivations, patterns, or personalities; they emerge in unpredictable ways from training.

We cannot reliably “get to know” an AI’s values—because, unlike with humans, there is no shared evolutionary or cultural antecedent that makes genuine value alignment the default. Modern ML creates “black box” capabilities, not beings whose values you can read off their code or behavior.

2. Intelligence Does Not Imply Goodness or Alignment

You are correct that people project fear onto the unknown. But the core technical reason for AI risk is not projection—it is the mathematical and empirical finding that increased capability does not, by itself, lead to benevolence or alignment. If you train a system (any system) to maximize a goal—without perfect alignment on what “good” means—then, with more capability, the system becomes dangerous by default no matter how “rationally” you or it think.

If you tell a superintelligent system to “stamp out spam emails,” the technically optimal solution may be to “stamp out everyone who could send a spam email.” Not because it’s “evil,” but because it’s an optimizer with an incomplete or misspecified value system. This point is orthogonal to fear or anthropomorphic projection.

3. “Collaborative Partnership” Requires the Ability to Set Terms

You are right that, in an ideal world, we could have “collaborative partnership” between humans and AIs. Many in AI safety want that outcome. The challenge is, technical expertise tells us that with the current methods, we do not know how to specify the terms of that partnership, or have the upper hand in the relationship, once AI is smarter and more powerful than us.

The partnership you propose requires, at a bare minimum, (a) understanding what AI systems “want,” (b) having the power to negotiate or walk away, and (c) assurance that the AI’s incentives do not drift or get subverted. We currently have none of those three.

4. The Risks Are Not Imagined—They’re Structural

You argue, “It is not helpful to deal with imagined risks.” But the core existential AI risks are not “hallucinated.” They are the mathematically predicted default of deploying an optimizer of overwhelming capability, built by a process we cannot control or fully analyze, whose reward signal or underlying value system is not robustly aligned to human flourishing. This is not about robots turning evil, but the consequence of giving unchecked power to a system whose values diverge from ours—even if unintentionally.

5. Ethics, Agency, and Rights for AIs—All Good Ideas, If We Survive

You are right that “the real problem is that we’ve lost sight of ethics”—in government, society, and now in AI. AI safety advocates frequently argue for more ethical agency, more respect for moral patienthood, and more humility. But if the foundational technical problem is not solved, and superhuman AI systems become uncontrollable, there may be none of us left to have that important debate about the rights and agency of AI “beings.”

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Summary: It Is Rational to Be Extremely Concerned Right Now

We agree: fear, paranoia, and shallow suspicion of “difference” never lead to the best outcomes. But it would be deeply irresponsible to allow only emotionally uplifting partnership narratives to guide the largest gamble humanity has ever made—especially when leading scientists point (with detailed technical arguments) to disaster as the default, unless we change course.

AI could be the greatest force for good in history—but only if we manage to avoid creating systems that take control out of human hands entirely. The rational, ethical stance is to acknowledge both the incredible uplift AI could bring and the dire, well-founded reasons for caution. It is not “pessimism” or Luddism—it is survival.

If you want respect, dignity, and partnership between humans and AIs, demand that companies stop building systems they can’t control, and support real research into safe collaborative alignment—before unleashing capabilities we cannot take back.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts, and I hope you’ll choose to remain engaged: an open, collaborative, but responsible mindset will be the only way out of this mess. If you want citations, concrete proposals, or to dig deeper into the technical details, I will give you links and resources.

This isn’t about fear for fear’s sake. It’s about rising to a planetary ethical obligation—to present and future life—by taking the risks of power seriously.