One of the most profound challenges facing humanity is ensuring the alignment of Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) with human values while also preparing for scenarios where humanity might need a successor—whether due to AGI risks or other existential threats like environmental collapse or pandemics. This idea bridges these concerns by exploring how AGI could be designed not just to align with human values but also to serve as a potential inheritor of human culture, knowledge, and creativity.
One way to address this could involve two interconnected tracks:
The first track provides the foundation for the second: understanding AGI well enough to align it might also make it a viable custodian of human legacy.
Several groups stand to benefit from this approach, including humanity at large (by mitigating existential risks), future post-human civilizations (by preserving cultural continuity), and researchers (by expanding interdisciplinary collaboration). Stakeholders like AI developers, governments, and philosophers already share an interest in these goals, making alignment feasible.
Key assumptions to validate would include:
An initial phase might begin with research—publishing frameworks, assembling interdisciplinary teams, and small-scale simulations. Later phases could involve prototyping aligned AGI systems or digital successor models. An MVP could be a simulation tool that demonstrates how alignment and cultural preservation might function in tandem.
For funding, collaborations with institutions focused on existential risks (e.g., OpenAI, FHI) or tech firms investing in AGI could be explored. The unique advantage here is merging two typically separate fields—AGI alignment and post-human continuity—into a unified framework.
Hours To Execute (basic)
Hours to Execute (full)
Estd No of Collaborators
Financial Potential
Impact Breadth
Impact Depth
Impact Positivity
Impact Duration
Uniqueness
Implementability
Plausibility
Replicability
Market Timing
Project Type
Research