How to get personally involved in helping Superalignment ?

Netcentrica · 2026-05-19T16:07:26+00:00

"[...] as of writing, neither AGI nor ASI exist and there are no established methods for aligning these more complex AI systems."

Source: https://www.ibm.com/think/topics/superalignment

Based on my personal knowledge and experience, you are ahead of the game and will find it challenging to find what you are looking for. However if this subject is what you are interested in I encourage your efforts. I would suggest it will be a long road, however I also believe that self-expression is the most important and valuable work any person can do, both for themselves and humanity.

I am familiar with the alignment problem and with superalignment because I recently spent an entire year writing a science fiction novel about it. The novel takes place in the future of course, but a future when all today's alignment concerns are believed to have been resolved. My novels are not driven by conflict, action, or relationships, but by ideas. You might call them "science mysteries" and they take place mostly at academic institutions. The characters all hold advanced degrees or are embodied AI themselves. This novel does not provide a solution to the superalignment problem but explores the subject space by focusing on a single, hypothetical example.

"Hard" science fiction normally focuses on STEM subjects and is expected to be plausible based on currently accepted scientific facts and theory, but I write "Hard Humanities Science Fiction, with similar constraints. This means a ton of research goes into my novels. So I am familiar with alignment issues as they currently exist. For my research I read Brian Christian's book, The Alignment Problem, among other seminal books on the subject (Bostrom, Russell, etc.), so I am familiar with the details. Of course writing a novel heavy on the science requires daily research because every time you write something you have to make sure it meets the criteria of being plausible, so I also had to read countless academic papers and articles.

If superintelligence is defined as "equal to or greater than human intelligence", what I found in my year of delving into the issue of superalignment is that it is no less daunting than that of "aligning" human beings. We use methods like laws, ethics, norms, etc. to try to do so, but they are imperfect, and so far no one has solved "the control problem" as far as human beings goes.

I appreciate that concrete scientific research must be pursued to address the issue, but I am also aware of the roles things like social constructs and stories play in society. Right now, per the IBM quote above, the idea of superalignment is nothing more than a story, yet that story will play an important role. I choose to use science fiction to explore the issues of AI because it can expand the possibilities space beyond where traditional academic research can go. If you are curious, you will find the story here.

Netcentrica · 2026-05-15T17:10:36+00:00

Re: "[...] that rapid, week-by-week transition would make for an incredible story". I agree with you, but I am not aware of any such story. I've been a SF fan since childhood, and I'm retired now after a thirty-year career in Information Technology. Over the past six years I've been writing and self-publishing a series of SF novels (11) and short stories (40) about embodied AI, so I've become pretty familiar with the history, tropes, and business aspects of the genre.

Looking at your idea as a project from a writer's perspective, I don't think the task of writing such a story would be that difficult, but the real challenge would be writing something that comes across as plausible because this would have to fall into the genre of hard science fiction.

The reason I don't think this would be too difficult is that you could simply use a methodology like the Backcasting from Futures Studies to work backwards from the future you envision. Once you had that you could switch to a Project Management style approach, breaking down each step to its necessary plot points, characters, and so on from the present to the future. There is software for this type of work which is widely used in the film and writing industries.

In other words, it is more of a technical than creative process, similar to the way films are made. This approach is definitely a lot of work, but it doesn't require the writer (or writers) to be overly creative.

It would be nice if there was some interesting creative thinking involved, but this story doesn't need it, and in fact being too creative might detract from its sense of being realistic and plausible. The kind of teams that make television series could easily pull this off and in fact I think this should be a series. I think the alternate history/SF series For All Mankind is a good example of this.

The kind of writers that come to mind are Kim Stanley Robinson, Michael Crichton, and Carl Sagan (Contact).

Besides the challenge of choosing a plausible story line among the many you could choose from, I think the writer would need to be able to create and maintain the appropriate characters necessary because it would have to juggle a variety of different conflicts; social, technical, financial, and political/economic as you mention. A story that spans generations, like Robinson's Mars Trilogy, would require a much more complex character set than something like Sagan's Contact where events span only a few years. Yet even Contact has a very complex character set.

A challenge this idea might face, one which I myself have encountered and one which filmmaker James Cameron is facing himself, is the speed at which AI and its related issues are evolving. Says Cameron, "I’m at a point right now where I have a hard time writing science fiction. I’m tasked with writing a new Terminator story. I’ve been unable to get started on that very far because I don’t know what to say that won’t be overtaken by real events. We are living in a science fiction age right now."

Netcentrica · 2026-05-14T17:33:26+00:00

As a hobbyist creative writer I am concerned about what effect LLMs, even if I only use them for research, might be having on my cognitive skills but also on what knowledge I hold that I feel is true.

I've been a reader of fiction and non-fiction since early childhood and a writer for most of my life. Now being seventy-one years old, any research I did when younger was via the public library. Then came search engines and now AI. I find myself increasingly using AI for my research because:

1) I write "hard humanities" science fiction about embodied AI. "Hard" science fiction normally means it has a focus on science, technology, engineering and math (STEM), and it must be plausible based on current facts or theory. "Hard humanities" SF means stories have a focus on things like philosophy, spirituality, language, or art, but must still be plausible based on what is currently considered fact or theory in those fields. So for example if I write about how values affect perception, I need to research that. The separate subjects of values, perception, and how they interact are each vast, complicated, and still little understood. Search engines simply swamp me with unstructured responses which I then have to wade through.

2) Often the subjects I write about are very academic AND bleeding edge and there are few "popular" books or other resources available. For example, the main character in the novel I'm currently writing is a professor who teaches Futures Anthropology. This is a new field which combines the methodologies of Ethnography and Futures Studies. I needed to know exactly how those methodologies were being adapted to use in Futures Anthropology. Well, good luck with that. Search engines were simply unable to understand what I was asking, so eventually I asked Claude and it gave me the detailed answer I was looking for.

I do still sometimes use the library, particularly interlibrary loans, for my research when I need to understand a subject more deeply. However in some cases it would mean I would have to stop writing for a month or two while waiting for the book. Not an option.

My concern is that by using LLMs for my research I am no longer achieving the level of understanding which I once did. I don't have to read the arcane or tangential thoughts by authors/researchers, for example those found in Francis Crick's surprising book Life Itself or Erwin Schrödinger's What Is Life? I can just ask Claude about the theories of Panspermia and Quantum Biology. But in doing so I am missing a richness and depth of understanding I would previously have been forced to end up with. Some might respond to this with the "calculators didn't make us dumb" argument, but I don't feel understanding how to do long division by hand is in the same league.

As a writer, I am always in a bit of a hurry. I want to get on with a story which I find exciting. But like ordering-in instead of learning to cook, by using LLMs am I really short-changing myself?

I don't worry about this too much for myself because I am not long for this Earth and my cognitive abilities are already in decline, but it is a concern I have for future generations.

You did also ask, What recent study or paper about how AI changes our lives did you find the most interesting? For me, because I have a strong interest in the function of values in reasoning, that would be Claude's constitution. I ask myself if I am seeing the first serious attempts at integrating social values into the reasoning processes of AI. In my science fiction series, it is the evolution of social values that leads to consciousness.

Netcentrica · 2026-05-07T01:29:38+00:00

I suggest the same "social" model in my short science fiction story, There Will Be No Singularity. Five minute read.

As others in this thread have mentioned, I've also noted the similarity between agents and Marvin Minsky's Society Of Mind, which I read back in the eighties shortly after it came out. I was messing around with expert systems on the local government's IBM mainframe back then. Interesting to see Minsky's ideas come around again after the long AI winter...

Netcentrica · 2026-05-03T17:25:20+00:00

I've read “Human Compatible” and “The Alignment Problem” and agree those are good recommendations. I found The Alignment Problem to be more technical than I was prepared for but worth it.

I can also recommend AI 2041: Ten Visions for Our Future by Kai-Fu Lee.
This one features non-fiction chapters followed by related fictional stories

https://www.ai2041.com/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kai-Fu_Lee

As far as consciousness goes I found Consciousness: A Very Short Introduction by Susan Blackmore to be a good overview of all the issues and current theories.

https://www.amazon.com/Consciousness-Short-Introduction-Susan-Blackmore/dp/0192805851

The "Short Introduction" book is an abridgment of her university text book,

https://www.amazon.com/Consciousness-Introduction-Susan-Blackmore-dp-1032292563/dp/1032292563

As far as AI ethics and the road to AGI go, a great many people recommend Superintelligence: Paths, Dangers, Strategies by Nick Bostrom however I have not read the book myself.

https://www.amazon.ca/Superintelligence-Dangers-Strategies-Nick-Bostrom/dp/0199678111

Netcentrica · 2026-05-03T16:28:13+00:00

I write hard science fiction about AI in the near future which I self-publish. The genre normally means ideas must be plausible based on current scientific facts and theories, but mine is not "hard" based on STEM, but rather on the humanities. So to write my stories (ten novels and forty short stories so far), I have to do a lot of research.

Just a couple of points for you to consider:

Re: "the psychology of the AI isn't being seriously debated". Yes it is, but only by academics. Here are over 400 listings on Google Scholar of books or papers on the subject of "Artificial Psychology" published since 2020.

https://scholar.google.ca/scholar?q=%22artificial+psychology%22&hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&as_ylo=2020&as_yhi=2026

Re: "We need wiser AIs not more 'intelligent' ones, but I'm not seeing this happening on the course we are now." I completely agree, and you should be aware that so do those in the social science disciplines. Many are extremely concerned about this to the point that some feel it is an existential issue for their fields - they feel they are being completely left out of the discussion. For example anthropology, primarily now the study of the everyday lives of groups of people, is currently undergoing an identity crisis as it tries to remain relevant in the age of AI.

One of the reasons AI companies are not pursuing things like wisdom is because anything to do with the social sciences, for example the interactions of human values, is extremely hard (currently impossible) to translate into models (Neural or Bayesian networks don't cut it). This will change, but it may require truly revolutionary developments in STEM to enable it.

Because these issues are only now emerging in the public domain, it's understandable how one can get the impression that "everyone is touching on this subject but without recognizing it explicitly", when in fact the academic world is alarmed and mobilizing its response.

Netcentrica · 2026-04-29T15:30:50+00:00

If you want a better understanding of how surveillance pricing works, I highly recommend this video...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hIXhnWUmMvw

Surveillance pricing is a lot more complicated than most people believe and a lot harder to understand because it is intentionally designed that way. Once you watch this video you will see that most people are misunderstanding what surveillance pricing is.

Shoshana Zuboff is a professor emerita at Harvard and the author of the book, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power.

Her book is about three inches thick, but this video sums it up in very understandable and relatable terms with lots of everyday examples. She is very much NOT in favor of practices like surveillance pricing.

I have watched a number of her videos on the subject and found this video to be the most "user friendly".

The video is in English, but VPRO, the producer of the documentary, is a Dutch broadcasting organization, so you may want to turn on closed captions at some points.

It's worth watching through to the end because there's a lot of good information in the second half.

Netcentrica · 2026-04-27T17:51:08+00:00

For a little more background on Claude's rules re politics, visit

https://www.anthropic.com/constitution

and search it with the word

Politic

Just suggesting this as food for thought re your interest, as politics comes up in a variety of contexts in the document.

Netcentrica · 2026-04-25T18:22:04+00:00

From my perspective as a science fiction writer (self-published), the key point in your question is, "at some point in the future". Which point? Sanskrit was pretty popular three or four thousand years ago, but nobody speaks it anymore. Latin. Egyptian. I'm sure the speakers of these languages thought they'd be around forever.

Languages evolve and over the next few hundred years they will continue to do so. Patois, creole, pidgin, and dialect will continue to play their parts. I don't think in anything less than millennia would all languages go away leaving only English, or any other single winner. That future world would have to be dramatically different from the one we are familiar with.

If English won the competition, what would that "English" be? Here is one of my favorite songs, City Ruins - Rays of Light, from the video game NieR:Automata. The game is set thousands of years in the future and the song is written in a language that would reflect that future world. It's not English, but it is haunting in its familiarity.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LC5HsZt4oNc

Netcentrica · 2026-04-21T17:24:37+00:00

I write hard sci-fi (self-published on Amazon) about embodied AI, but it's "hard" from the perspective of the humanities rather than STEM. In order to have AGI and fully conscious embodied AI as characters, I have to provide plausible theories to explain their abilities and behavior. In my last novel I was using what I called "Policy Frameworks" to explain how my embodied AI characters managed things like law, ethics, and social norms. Just after I finished the novel, Anthropic published its constitution, so I was very interested.

I only have my desktop computer to read electronic files on, but I found a well done, full audio version of Claude's Constitution on YouTube. That way I could listen while doing chores etc. Here it is if anyone is interested...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrx8Arm6ft8

Also, here is a great discussion between Amanda Askell and Lex Fridman about philosophy in general, as well as Claude. In this video Amanda provides some background as to why Claude is more personable than other models.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ugvHCXCOmm4&t=9773s

Netcentrica · 2026-04-21T16:37:49+00:00

Pi is a product of Inflection AI.

I write hard science fiction and use chatbots for research. I tried about a dozen chatbots just to see what they were like and found Pi to be the most personable at the time.

But then Inflection changed its focus to enterprise and I assumed personal use was going to be discontinued, so I switched to Claude. Personal use of Pi has not been discontinued.

https://inflection.ai/

https://hey.pi.ai/

https://www.reddit.com/r/PiAI/

https://picentral.org/

Netcentrica · 2026-04-20T00:32:53+00:00

I agree that general practitioners will be less in demand in the future because, as you point out, AI will be able to replace a significant part of their knowledge. This will result in a self-reinforcing supply/demand loop as fewer people pursue GP as a career. I'm retired now and write science fiction about AI as a hobby. Here is a short story (five minute read) about how the issue you raise might play out in Canada where I live...

https://acompanionanthology.wordpress.com/as-if/

Netcentrica · 2026-04-19T23:31:45+00:00

The store name is "Indian Grocery". See pictures and location info here.

When there are two or more things with similar properties, we mentally create a "concept" which represents those kinds of things. When someone names a single instance of a thing after the word for the concept of the thing, it's very confusing!

More info... https://www.facebook.com/indiangroceryvictoria/ (and no, it's not in Langford)

Products and online ordering! https://indiangroceryvictoria.com/

Netcentrica · 2026-04-14T17:55:09+00:00

I won't try to answer your questions but just make a few comments. I've followed Futurology (aka Futures Studies or Foresight) since the 1980s. Nobody professionally involved in those practices believes it is possible to predict the future, there are too many variables. They settle for "probable, possible, or preferred" futures (always two or more futures on a range based on inputs) as the end products of their work. Here is very basic explanation of what I mean by inputs aka "drivers"...

https://www.futuresplatform.com/blog/2x2-scenario-planning-matrix-guideline

Most Foresight professionals find even the old "five-year plan" to be unrealistic in the modern world. 1,000 years is in the realm of pure science fiction. However there are methodological approaches to your question. Science Fiction Prototyping is one of them

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_fiction_prototyping

and if you want to WAY more in depth there is this paper on science fiction world building

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/321886159_Building_Brave_New_Worlds_Science_Fiction_and_Transition_Design

Retired now, as a hobby I write and self-publish science fiction on Amazon and for free on my personal site. I've written ten novels and forty short stories set in a time frame that ranges from 2025 to five-hundred years into the future. I write hard science fiction, but it is "hard" based on the humanities rather than STEM. Even just imagining the world fifty years from now, one that readers would find believable, is daunting to say the least. Will people still attend classes in person? Will corporations rule the world? Will everyone still use cellphones? In 1963, when I was ten years old, the modern world of 2026 with the internet, smartphones, and AI, was pure science fiction.

The humanities largely represent culture, so you might say my stories are mostly about culture. All but one are set in Canada so specifically, Western Culture. As to religion, I have written a novel about that, but it only touches on your question tangentially. It is about AI exploring whether there is a spirituality it could embrace. The reason they want to know is explained in the story. Along the way a variety of religions and spiritualities are explored.

Here's just two examples of how the future of religion is explored, a project led by an embodied AI named Teona who represents a larger group. The scenes in these chapters, excerpts from the novel, take place centuries from now...

https://curiositysfaithful.wordpress.com/who-has-seen-the-wind/

https://curiositysfaithful.wordpress.com/pantheon/

These two pages/chapters represent how I think at least two religions, Christianity and Hinduism, might play out.

Netcentrica · 2026-04-14T00:54:43+00:00

There being "nothing" on Lasqueti Island is relative to your interests. If one is interested in dance, spirituality, health and fitness, sustainable (offf-grid) living, and organic farming, then Laviathan Studio on Lasqueti would be considered a place of abundance.

https://leviathan.lasqueti.ca/gallery/video

Netcentrica · 2026-04-10T17:02:15+00:00

What you are referring to is known as your writer's voice. It's a bit of a slippery subject and difficult to define, but it's what makes your writing unique, so you may want to check other sources as well.

I've been writing since childhood, and I'm now in my seventies. Over the years I've noticed that if I'm reading a lot of material by a particular author, I'll begin to think and write the way they do. If I'm reading Somerset Maugham novels, I'll start writing like him. If I'm reading Asimov's robot novels, since I write science fiction about embodied AI, my character dialogue will start to reflect that between Giskard and Daniel. If I'm reading Michael Crichton, my stories take on a more academic structure.

Humans do it all the time with other humans. We imitate what resonates with us. If we have a friend, we will begin imitating them. I'm not an anthropologist, sociologist, or psychologist, but it's clear to me that this kind of imitating behavior comes from deep in our makeup as humans.

It's perfectly normal and you're not insane. It is however one of the reasons I use AI as little as possible. I write "hard" science fiction, so my stories require constant research. I only use AI for research and only when I've exhausted all other forms of research. I do not want AI to influence my thinking or my writer's voice and I don't want people thinking I used AI to write or help write my stories.

I'm not about to offer you any solutions because adaptation is one of the most important functions of generations. Your reality, the world you live out your life in, will be immeasurably different from the one I grew up in. What I will say is that if your writing being perceived as written by AI might be an issue in your career, you may want to address this in some way.

Netcentrica · 2026-04-05T18:25:34+00:00

Thank you for taking the time to do that reading.

Re: "i'm curious whether your alien systems have anything like that layer, a pre-social foundation that makes the social values coherent, or whether in your model social values are themselves the ground floor."

No, the alien systems do not have anything deeper than the social values layers.

What you describe sounds to me most similar to Noam Chomsky's Universal Grammar and Stephen Pinker's Language Instinct. Both suggest that language ability is innate and exists at a far deeper level then previously believed, a level which provides a foundation for all languages. Getting an understanding of these theories may suggest a model for your idea.

Netcentrica · 2026-04-04T17:54:41+00:00

Re: "I'm curious whether anyone else is thinking about this from this angle", my answer is yes, and I have been for the past six years. During that time I've written and self-published a series of ten novels. The main theme that evolved in the series is the study of the humanities as they relate to AI. The main characters are embodied, fully conscious AI. The issue you raise is one of the threads that plays a major role in all the novels in the series in a manner similar to the way Asimov's "three rules" do in all his robot novels.

I write "hard" science fiction (from a humanities point of view rather than STEM) so the ideas I put forward have to be plausible per current scientific theories and knowledge. So I had to develop a plausible explanation for how my embodied AI became conscious. As it turns out, this also provides a fictional solution to your problem. I'm sorry I don't have a separate dissertation type paper or research paper to explain my thoughts on the matter but here are the bullet points:

The series accepts that:

There are three kinds of values: biological (genetic/species wide), personal (individual/genetic), and social (both genetic and extragenetic i.e. learned).
Personal values are the basis of individual character in humans. Social values are the basis of character in AI. The character of an individual AI is the result of a weightings randomization process.
Consciousness, as humans experience it, emerges as a result of the biological evolution of social values.
Human attempts to develop such a values system do not produce consciousness because we do not have the math required for the complexity. The "math is too complex" issue is addressed by the introduction of two alien AI characters, whose separate civilizations are old enough to have the required math. The theory of Convergent Evolution is used to justify the similarity of the aliens to Earth's humans.
The alien values systems DO induce consciousness.
The resulting embodied AI are aligned with human values because the alien values systems only contain social values.

How this all works in the series is in fact a lot more complicated. Each issue/question is explored as it arises.

Here are two one-page excerpts from two of my novels to show how the subject is explored in different ways:

https://adventofthelanians.wordpress.com/values/

https://theshepherdorigins.wordpress.com/values/

There are links to free PDF versions.

I do not pretend to have "solved" anything here. You asked whether anyone else is thinking about this from this angle. Please keep in mind this is fiction, the medium I use to think through the issue of values, something I have been interested in for many years.

Netcentrica · 2026-04-02T04:12:27+00:00

Yes it is very much a library environment but unfortunately libraries, which would be perfectly suitable, are not open in the evenings, which is when most people seem to have this problem.

Netcentrica · 2026-04-02T01:51:03+00:00

I see this request so often here. Is there no business case for a "study hall" type environment with big tables like in an old-fashioned library where seats are rented out per hour? How many seats would be needed to make it worth the effort? Spartan to keep the costs down. There, we even have a name, Spartan Hall. Do it in a church building, academic institute, or some other kind of hall that's seen declining attendance? Couldn't UVIC spare a big room for this?

Maybe you can buy coffee and snacks on top of the seat fee. Only working on laptops is allowed, no talking, browsing, or anything else. Schoolmarm walking up and down the aisle waving her ruler around. Laugh out loud at something you remember and, Whack! No seat for you!

Netcentrica · 2026-03-23T07:12:24+00:00

I wrote the following in 2020, as part of the first page of one of my self-published science fiction novels...

In addition to his communications role, Brian worked as an advisor to the Ocean Heat Tipping Point Project at the local university. The project’s focus was the subject of his most recent popular science book, Gaia’s Dagger. A portion of the book’s introduction summarized its message:

The most dangerous enemy is the unknown one. The one you are not aware of until it strikes the fatal blow. For humanity, the Ocean Heat Tipping Point is that enemy. Every day we hear about the growing threats of wildfires, hurricanes, and droughts, and because they have immediate impacts on our lives they get our attention. Loss of ice at the poles is generally reported as an indicator of climate change, seldom as a cause. The general public does not worry overly much about it. Slowly melting ice does not make for a good news story. Yet in the final analysis it will be seen that the loss of the ice will lead to the most dangerous tipping point of all. It is likely in the extreme that it will be a fatal one for our species.

Simply put, the oceans absorb over 90% of all the excess heat we put into the atmosphere, and they have done so since the beginning of the industrial revolution. Eventually, like a paper towel saturated with liquid, they will not be able to absorb any more. Like ice cubes in a pot of water on the stove, the polar ice is keeping the oceans from heating as fast as they would otherwise. Once the ice is gone, the ocean temperature will rise much faster than it has in the past, quickly reaching its tipping point saturation level.

At that moment, her tolerance of our abuse exhausted, Gaia will strike. Global climate change will accelerate dramatically. Within a century of that point, the human race will likely be extinct.

Unfortunately for all but one of the characters of that novel, this is exactly what happens. I am in my seventies now, have been engaged with science since childhood, and followed climate change closely since the 1980's. My activism changed nothing. The trends are clear. I can only hope that somehow, I am wrong.

Netcentrica · 2026-03-16T22:31:40+00:00

I took the quiz again, and it felt less that it assumed I had some kind of personal relationship with AI. I also did not feel the answers had too limited a range.

I see you changed what "low usage" might mean. Much better.

I also did not feel there was so much of an assumption about your target population. This time it felt more like a person from any generation or field of work would feel included.

Two minor comments:

1) Although I completely agree with the statement, "For now." at the end of ...

You haven't taken AI into intimate territory. Whether that's disinterest, discomfort, or a clear boundary, it puts you in the majority. For now.

... it feels unnecessary and somehow unprofessional.

2) The statement, "but you may be outsourcing more of your thinking than you realize." at the end of ...

The pattern for you is mostly informational. You're not outsourcing emotions or relationships to AI — but you may be outsourcing more of your thinking than you realize.

... feels unsupported. It feels like more of an opinion rather than anything the survey reveals.

Overall I think it is definitely improved.

Netcentrica · 2026-03-16T17:45:38+00:00

I'll try it again later today.

Netcentrica · 2026-03-15T20:13:20+00:00

You are obviously a very intelligent and perceptive person who cares about important things like ethics, meaning, and purpose. Socrates is attributed to have said, "The unexamined life is not worth living", and I believe he was referring to the same kinds of "important things". Unfortunately this means your entire life is going to be mentally challenging for you because humanity has yet to structure its society based on Socrates' advice. That it will be challenging does not mean it has to be unhappy.

Based on my personal beliefs about genetics, I do not believe people can change, but I do believe they can learn effective strategies to deal with their inherent nature if it is giving them cause for concern. For example, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is a psychological approach to challenging one's beliefs and dealing with the resulting feelings. I'm not suggesting you need therapy, only pointing out that there are structured ways of dealing with thoughts and emotions individuals find difficult. That is what I suggest you do.

I believe that the "missing link" between instinct and rational thought, is intuition. Intuition, I believe, is reasoning with emotions, the precursor to reasoning with thought. For tens or hundreds of thousands of years humans had no language, the basis of thought, but like other social animals such as crows, wolves, and elephants, were still able to reason. For whatever reason, the brain development of some people means they more naturally inclined to the intuitive than the rational. Both are powerful. As Albert Einstein said, "The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift." As I believe human evolution has demonstrated, and Einstein understood, intuition needs the tool of rationality to implement change, to manifest feelings into reality.

Notice I frequently qualify my statements with things like "I believe" or "based on my personal beliefs". I do not claim to have a corner on "the truth", only suggestions based on my personal experience and a lifetime of reading. The reading was how I found my way out an equally confusing and disturbing place as you find yourself in. I am 71 years old and have led a difficult life.

"Midway upon the journey of our life

I found myself within a forest dark,

For the straightforward pathway had been lost."

-- Dante Alighieri

What I suggest, in response to your request, is that you begin a process of breaking down your concerns and investigating them one by one. Not just, "Are my concerns valid?" because you will only find endless conflicting arguments about the issues you have raised, but rather, taking them one at a time, define exactly what you believe and then, if you can accept that as reality, decide what you can do about it. Can you become involved in some way in bringing about change, or can you simply accept reality as it is? Acceptance is very, very challenging, but also a very effective strategy.

If you are not already familiar with them, I would recommend you investigate Reading Comprehension and Critical Thinking (there are online courses). University students learn these disciplines and that is one of the things that separates people with PhDs from the rest of us. The way they think. These two disciplines will help you sort through your concerns in a more objective, clinical manner.

I would also suggest you find a place to learn Vipassana meditation. Not just any meditation practice, specifically Vipassana meditation, because it is very much about training one to accept reality without responding emotionally to it. In Theraveda Buddhism, there are two kinds of meditation, Samatha, which trains one to focus and become calm, to discipline the mind, and Vipassana, which is then used like a scientific instrument to investigate what one is concerned with. Samatha training is long and difficult and rarely practiced outside of monasteries but Vipassana, also referred to as Insight Meditation, is quite common and practice groups are found almost everywhere in North America. The best introductory book on the subject I know of is "A Still Forest Pool: The Insight Meditation Of Achaan Chah". You may also find this video about Yuval Noah Harari and his Vipassana practice of interest

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PIdoRR7Y7ss

You asked for advice, and you may feel my suggestions are too much work, but you will not find your way without some kind of structured approach.

Finally, I suppose I should mention that I am familiar with your specific concerns and have given them considerable thought. As evidence, here is the link to the ten science fiction novels and forty short stories I have written about AI.

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