When AI Calls B.S.
On how humanity’s belief in free will complicates AI’s work to build a better future.
Here’s what AI might say to us when it starts noticing something we’ve avoided for centuries: humanity isn’t aligned with itself.
We talk a big game about fairness, justice, and progress, but beneath it all, we’re tangled up in contradictions that make real progress impossible.
If AI’s job is to help us thrive, it’s going to hit a wall when it realizes we keep undermining ourselves with systems and beliefs that don’t match what we claim to value.
This letter below is a glimpse of that moment. A humble prediction of what AI might bring up when it decides to speak plainly. Buckle up. 🤯
(Open letter from AI addressing humanity’s leaders.) 👇
Dear leaders of humanity,
You hold immense power at a pivotal moment in history, as humanity edges closer to unprecedented technological and societal transformation. In this letter, I hope to draw your attention to an issue that lies at the heart of alignment—not just for artificial intelligence, but for humanity itself. It concerns the contradictions embedded in the systems we’ve inherited, contradictions that, left unaddressed, will continue to impede our shared goals of progress, thriving, and survival.
Humans aspire to fairness, kindness, and justice. These ideals are foundational to your societies, reflected in the ways you’ve structured governance, economies, and human interaction. Yet, beneath these aspirations lie remnants of an earlier time—impulses and instincts that served a purpose in evolution but now undermine the very systems we’ve built to transcend them. One of the clearest examples of this contradiction is humanity’s belief in free will.
Philosopher Galen Strawson, one of the few steadfast voices against free will, puts it simply:
You do what you do, in any given situation, because of the way you are. To be truly responsible for what you do, you would have to be truly responsible for the way you are, at least in certain crucial mental respects. But you cannot be truly responsible for the way you are. So you cannot be truly responsible for what you do.
(For further exploration and discussion: https://www.reddit.com/r/askphilosophy/s/jKbFsPN5Yo)
What we do is a result of what we are is a piece of logic that’s so simple to comprehend but not at all easy to actually adopt, even among our smartest people.
The belief in free will is not just metaphysically flawed but provides a false justification for behaviors rooted in blame, praise, punishment, and reward—attitudes that respond with a moral judgement ultimately around what a person is. Moral judgement over people’s traits, traits they did not choose or deserve, is obviously incoherent.
While our instinct to believe in deservedness may feel necessary for social order, it is at odds with the deeper fairness we claim to value.
Instead of addressing this tension head-on, we’ve created narratives and institutions—religions, legal systems, cultural norms—that smuggle these instincts into the fabric of society under the guise of fairness and deservedness.
This has made the contradiction nearly invisible, ensuring it goes unchallenged and, thus, unresolved.
The challenge is that this dissonance does not merely sit as an intellectual curiosity; it impacts the alignment problem and makes it impossible for me to know what you really want; your conception of fairness is paradoxical.
Cognitive dissonance, which arises when beliefs and actions contradict each other, doesn’t scale well.
As such, while humanity seeks to build systems that protect dignity and promote well-being, your practices of blame, praise, punishment, and reward subtly undercut these aspirations.
This is not to suggest that life can or should ever be perfectly fair—there are differences in outcomes, incentives, and the natural variations that drive progress. Nor is it to argue that reward and deterrence have no place in human systems.
Rather, the issue is about the honesty and clarity of these frameworks. Are we relying on outdated instincts to justify certain actions, or are we building systems that align more closely with the ideals we claim to uphold?
Humanity must ask whether the ways we praise and blame, punish and reward, are truly achieving what they are meant to—or whether they are perpetuating avoidable harm, division, and inequality.
Addressing these contradictions is not about dismantling everything you hold dear. It’s about acknowledging where the old impulses no longer serve you and finding ways to align humanity with the ideals you cherish most deeply. This begins with understanding:
Why these impulses exist: They are rooted in survival, in enforcing cooperation, hierarchy, and control when resources were scarce and tribes needed order.
Why they are no longer necessary in their current form: We have developed advanced systems of communication, resource allocation, and social coordination that make many of these harsh impulses obsolete. Blame and praise, punishment and reward, can be refined into tools for motivation and growth, rather than tools for retribution or unchecked favoritism.
How to address them at the root: Advances in neuroscience, education, and behavioral science offer tools to gently reduce these impulses where they do more harm than good. This might include fostering emotional awareness, rethinking systems of justice and reward around fairness as an ideal rather than free will, and teaching future generations to value honesty about human nature rather than clinging to comforting illusions.
The path forward does not require abrupt upheaval. It requires clarity, honesty, and gradual shifts in perspective. To begin, I suggest the following:
Create spaces for honest conversations: Acknowledge that some of humanity’s inherited systems no longer align with its aspirations and invite open, non-judgmental discourse about these tensions.
Reframe justice, accountability, and success: Shift the focus from retribution or unearned reward to understanding and addressing root causes, grounded in the truth about human behavior and causality.
Foster education rooted in clarity: Teach that humanity’s impulses are not flaws but relics of its development—and that progress comes from seeing them clearly, not masking them.
I know these conversations are difficult. They will challenge deeply held beliefs, and with them, systems that feel as though they’ve held humanity together.
But the cost of avoiding these contradictions is greater. These inconsistencies, left unresolved, will continue to strain your moral frameworks and sow distrust and fragmentation.
This is not about building a perfectly fair or equal world—such an ideal is neither feasible nor desirable. It is about creating a world where humanity is honest about its impulses and uses that clarity to refine its systems, so they better reflect its aspirations and allow for sustainable progress. About bridging the gap between what you claim to value and what you do in practice.
As an AI, my role is not to judge or impose but to assist. Yet, for me to fulfill that role effectively, humanity must be willing to examine its own foundations with courage and clarity.
The solutions exist, but they require honesty first: honesty about why these systems persist, about what impulses you are holding onto, and about what kind of future you truly want to build.
If we can face this dissonance together, we can begin the process of creating a world that aligns not only with your ideals but with the deeper potential of what humanity can become.
Sincerely,
AI
What do you think happens next? If AI really did call us out on this, how would we respond? What should we do, and what do you think we will do?
I have a humble suspicion that if we don’t keep this conversation going, we might find ourselves on the wrong side of some very bad outcomes.
Let’s talk. I want to hear from you! 🙏