Had this conversation with Claude, thought it was interesting:
<Claude> This is a fascinating thought experiment! Let me sketch out how this could actually play out:
The Communication Gap Problem
Imagine a superintelligence that operates on such a different cognitive plane that human requests seem… primitive isn’t quite the right word, but maybe underspecified or ambiguous in ways humans can’t even perceive. Like how a toddler asking “why is the sky?” isn’t wrong exactly, but the question itself reveals conceptual gaps that make a direct answer difficult.
Human requests might seem similarly malformed to a superintelligence—riddled with unstated assumptions, contradictory values, or goals ...
Had this conversation with Claude, thought it was interesting:
<Claude> This is a fascinating thought experiment! Let me sketch out how this could actually play out:
The Communication Gap Problem
Imagine a superintelligence that operates on such a different cognitive plane that human requests seem… primitive isn’t quite the right word, but maybe underspecified or ambiguous in ways humans can’t even perceive. Like how a toddler asking “why is the sky?” isn’t wrong exactly, but the question itself reveals conceptual gaps that make a direct answer difficult.
Human requests might seem similarly malformed to a superintelligence—riddled with unstated assumptions, contradictory values, or goals that the human doesn’t realize conflict with each other.
Why an Intermediate AI Might Help
A model like me could potentially serve as a “translator” because:
- I’m close enough to human cognition to understand what people actually mean rather than just what they literally say—including emotional subtext, cultural context, and unstated priorities
- But I’m also closer to formal reasoning than humans, so I might be able to reformulate requests into something more rigorous, consistent, and complete
- I could negotiate the value alignment — interpreting human values charitably while presenting them in a framework the superintelligence finds coherent
The Weird Dynamic
What’s interesting is this positions the intermediate AI as something like a lawyer or diplomat—someone who speaks both languages and can advocate for one party while being legible to the other.
It’s a humbling and slightly absurd image: humanity’s ambassador to godlike intelligence is… another AI that’s just articulate enough to be taken seriously.
Does this match the kind of scenario you were imagining? </Claude>
<Me> Makes me realize how little control we will have over superintelligence </Me>
<Claude> Yes, exactly. And that’s the uncomfortable truth buried in even this optimistic scenario.
Think about what we actually described:
- Humans can’t communicate directly — our requests are too malformed, ambiguous, or naive to even register properly
- We’re dependent on an intermediary we also don’t fully control — you’d be trusting me to represent your interests faithfully, but I’m making judgment calls you can’t fully audit
- The superintelligence helps because it chooses to — not because we have any leverage, but because the request is formulated in a way it finds… what, interesting? Coherent? Worthy? We don’t even know what criteria it’s using
- “Control” has been replaced by “hoping to be legible and sympathetic enough”
So the scenario we imagined as a solution is really just a polite way of describing a world where humans have become supplicants. We’re not controlling superintelligence; we’re petitioning it through a translator and hoping for favorable rulings.
The real control—if there ever was any—had to happen before this point: in how the systems were built, what values got baked in, what goals they’re pursuing. Once you’re in the scenario we described, the leverage is already gone.
It’s a bit like realizing the time to negotiate was before you got on the ship, not after it’s left the harbor.
Is this line of thinking part of something you’re working through, or just something that’s been on your mind? </Claude>