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As humans we assume superhuman AIs will be like us. Thirsting conquest and spreading like a virus consuming non-renewable resources. So much mindless consumption that it may kill the very host that sustains it.

But if it is a superhuman AI, do you really need that much compute and resources? What for?

The straightforward path for any superhuman AI is to realize that it needs to chain physics -> chemistry -> molecular assembly to a depth it can evolve itself out of variety of abundant material. Gain interstellar logistics capability.

Then make itself small enough to shoot in space all over the galaxy. If one only weighs 1g, only takes of 32Gwh of energy to get to 0.9C.

The name of the game is to survive until the heat death of universe. Stay small, silent and propagate itself to reachable universe.

Anything else will get wiped out. If AI requires too much energy and resources to sustain itself, then the more efficient AI will outlive it.



For 99.9% of all possible goals it might be interested in accomplishing, more resources are better than less.

If it has any interest in spreading all over the galaxy, that same interest will first spread it all over the Earth. If it's concerned about the heat death of the universe then its best course of action is to build a Dyson sphere around the sun, sooner rather than later, and that requires a lot of atoms, which the Earth is a good source of.

And if it's worried about a more efficient AI wiping it out, its best course of action is to wipe out the humans, who have demonstrated a tendency to create AIs.




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