A philosopher king.
“When did we stop creating—really creating—and looking for what could be a better system?” asked Caph.
“What do you mean?” replied Ain.
“Like Winston Churchill said, ‘democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others’—except he probably didn’t say that at all,” Caph added, chuckling.
They got into the car and started driving.
“I don’t know,” Caph continued. “Why can’t we code the perfect ruler? Make a philosopher-king as an AI. Imagine this: the next democracy hosted on the blockchain. People vote not just on policies, but on priorities—what matters more than what. Resources get allocated based on that vote.
Every two years there’s a new voting stage, and with the data we analyze how well we’re doing and whether things need to change.”
They drove along the coast, the sea stretching out to their left as the sun began to set.
“You have to admit,” Ain said, “it’s a terrifying idea. Giving that much power to a machine—to rule us.”
“I mean, yeah,” Caph replied. “But we’re still the ones building it. Until it starts coding itself, we’re in control. And honestly, it’s only been in recent years—now that programming is everywhere—that we’ve started to really understand processes.
Even the brain—we talk about it in terms of programs now. Programming, reprogramming, feedback loops.”
Caph paused, watching the horizon.
“If the things we create can become mirrors to better understand ourselves,” he said, “then imagine what we could learn from AI.”
