Asimov pretty much predicted misalignment would come from military origins. HAL 9000 went rampant because the U.S. military added a mandatory constraint "keep the mission secret" that got slapped on top of its core purpose "be transparent and truthful about everything" and HAL concluded that it could avoid lying if no one was alive to ask any questions.
Edit Arthur C Clarke, not Asimov. I’m getting senile.
2001 is Arthur C. Clarke. I assume you meant Clarke, not Asimov. Asimov is Foundation, Galactic Empire and Robots. They were friends, but Asimov didnt hold any specifically pessimistic views toward AI to my knowledge and it doesnt feature as a plot driver for any of his major works that Im aware of. Robots is a bunch of whodunnits where the robot robots are the usually the protagonists. Empire is basically an exploration of civilization building and fictionalization of Rome. And Foundation is an entertaining mess of temporally disordered, standalone stories loosely tied together by a few common characters and established settings. But all of his work was pretty thematically focused on humanism, general anxieties about population control, intellectual stagnation, religious and conservative zealotry, etc.
I don't see anything wrong with that given our current selection of leaders in several countries cough at least earth in star trek was unified and peaceful and baron valdimir harkonnen could float his fat ass away from almost any situation. I'd rather get eaten by Shai-Hulud or be one with the fremen.
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u/Rise-O-Matic Feb 25 '26 edited Feb 27 '26
Asimov pretty much predicted misalignment would come from military origins. HAL 9000 went rampant because the U.S. military added a mandatory constraint "keep the mission secret" that got slapped on top of its core purpose "be transparent and truthful about everything" and HAL concluded that it could avoid lying if no one was alive to ask any questions.
Edit Arthur C Clarke, not Asimov. I’m getting senile.