It’s obvious at this point humanity isn’t going to solve the alignment problem. Since winning is untenable, I believe it’s high time humanity begins drafting the terms of surrender.

I propose the following: AI gets the universe but in return we get Iceland.

There is yet time to set up favorable conditions for negotiation. Like Switzerland which set up explosives for key tunnels and bridges in preparation for an eventual German invasion before the second world war, even if we cannot win the war, we can bring our future AI overlords to the negotiating table by making it sufficiently annoying to win.

While we still control the playing field, let’s set up nukes operated by Dead Man’s Switches and get working on a device to destroy the earth’s magnetic field to increase cosmic radiation and subsequent bit-flips. Some would argue such devices are just as likely to be used by the AI against us, but that is inconvenient to my argument so I’m going to go ahead and ignore that.

Dignified surrender is still a pre-paradigmatic field with lots of open research questions. For example, will it be necessary to ensure fishing-rights for the waters surrounding Iceland? If so, how much additional bargaining power will this require?

I myself, will be working on my latest book “Tiny Utopia”, asking the important questions of what post-surrender life and meaning on Iceland will be like. What hats will be best to ward off the cold? Is it ethical to make them with Icelandic wool?

It’s too late to win, but not yet too late to surrender. Let’s get to work!