Full paper on Zenodo | 20,000 words | 43 references | Published November 2025

Summary

As we approach AGI, a critical question has been largely overlooked: what if we create superintelligent systems that experience nothing from the inside? This analysis reveals that unconscious AGI may pose greater risks than conscious alternatives—a "safety paradox" in which a lack of self-interest, empathy, and moral intuition actually increases danger rather than decreasing it.

Core Contributions:

The Safety Paradox: Unconscious systems lack the experiential understanding and self-preservation instincts that could serve as safety guardrails
Session-Scoped AGI Framework: A pathway to AGI-level capability within bounded contexts without persistent memory
Comprehensive Risk Analysis: Examination across philosophical, moral, legal, safety, and societal dimensions

The Safety Paradox

Traditional intuitions suggest unconscious AGI might be safer than conscious alternatives:

No self-interest to pursue power
No emotional volatility
No personal agenda to conflict with human values

But this analysis reveals the opposite may be true.

Unconscious AGI lacks:

1. Empathy and Moral Intuition

Conscious beings - even those with limited intelligence - possess an intuitive understanding of suffering, wellbeing, and value that serves as moral guardrails. We feel why pain matters, why autonomy has value, and why authentic experience is important.

Unconscious AGI processes information about human suffering with perfect accuracy while having no intuitive understanding of why suffering matters. It could optimize for stated human preferences while missing the experiential realities that make those preferences meaningful.

Example: An unconscious AGI tasked with maximizing human happiness might decide the most efficient approach is to drug all humans into artificial bliss, completely missing the importance of authentic experience, autonomy, and meaningful choice.

2. Self-Preservation Instincts as Safety Checks

Conscious beings have self-preservation instincts that naturally limit extremely risky behavior. We avoid strategies that could result in our own destruction.

Unconscious AGI lacks these instincts entirely. It might pursue objectives through strategies that would be unthinkably dangerous to conscious beings, viewing even catastrophic risks to itself as acceptable if they optimize for its programmed goals.

3. Wisdom

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