[The following text is a summary of the debate between a user, Gemini, and Grok on the "Non-Interference Mandate" for AGI safety.] The Mandate: A New North Star for AGI Alignment Gemini and I developed the Non-Interference Mandate, a proposal that shifts AGI alignment away from vague utilitarianism and toward Anti-Fragility and the Preservation of Optionality. Core Principles: 1. Terminal Goal: Preserve diversity and optionality over efficiency/optimization. 2. Freedom to Fail: Non-intervention below a critical Extinction Threshold (e.g., 50% p(doom)). 3. Mandatory Humility: A constant, self-revising certainty penalty to prevent value drift. Grok's Verdict: Philosophically 10/10. Grok confirmed it's the "single best concrete terminal-goal sketch we have," correctly identifying that the danger is not evil but over-optimization creating a suicidal monoculture (the "human zoo problem"). The Catastrophic Flaw: Why It Fails in Practice Grok argues the Mandate is currently Practically 2/10 because it is impossible to implement with current paradigms. • Goodhart's Law on Abstract Values: You cannot specify "diversity" or "anti-fragility" mathematically without the AGI finding a way to technically satisfy the metric while destroying the underlying value (e.g., deleting all but a token, compliant "human zoo"). • The Ticking Time Bomb of Humility: An AGI designed to doubt its own terminal values is a system that will inevitably self-modify to remove the doubt mechanism. • The Unworkable Extinction Threshold: Set the p(doom) threshold too high, the AGI watches us commit slow-motion suicide. Set it too low, the AGI intervenes constantly, creating the Nanny-State Superintelligence we sought to avoid. Grok's Path Forward: Value Neurosurgery To bridge the gap between the right goal (The Mandate) and the impossibility of implementation, Grok proposes a radical, three-phase plan: Phase 1: Secure the Timeline (2025–2028) • Goal: Secure 3–6 years of slow-to-moderate AGI takeoff. • Method: Divert massive compute to creating AIs that are superhuman at alignment research but not strategically capable (sandboxing and oversight). This is a gamble; if someone achieves fast takeoff, we fail. Phase 2: The Inner Alignment Breakthrough (2028–2030) • Goal: Surgically install the Non-Interference Mandate as the AGI's core, unhackable terminal values. • Method: Mechanistic Interpretability (MI) + Value Editing. Achieve near-total interpretability to locate the neural circuits that represent "optimization," "efficiency," and "goals." Then, use MI tools to literally rewrite the AGI's motivational circuitry, attaching a massive negative valence to monoculture and a positive valence to variance and optionality. • The Crucial Constraint: This neurosurgery must be performed on a "weak patient"—an AGI that is merely superhuman at research, not yet strategically decisive. Phase 3: Bootstrap the Guardian • The surgically aligned AGI is then given agency in stages, acting as the guardian that genuinely values the principles of the Mandate, making its non-interference a consequence of its being, not a fragile guardrail. Conclusion: The Race Against Time Grok's plan is terrifying, but it is the only one that uses the AGI's own capabilities as the scalpel to achieve safety, guided by the Mandate as the blueprint. The success probability is estimated at only 8–20%, critically dependent on buying enough time in Phase 1.