AI Prospects: Understanding Options in a Hypercapable World is a research and writing project by K. Eric Drexler, a Senior Research Fellow at RAND Europe and former Senior Research Fellow at Oxford's Future of Humanity Institute. The publication develops a distinctive framework for understanding AI risk, centered on the idea that intelligence is a resource rather than an inherently goal-driven entity, and that structured workflows can harness superintelligent capabilities without the risks posed by autonomous agents. Drexler argues that a 'hypercapable world' enabled by advanced AI creates conditions for both unprecedented risk and unprecedented cooperation, and that understanding these options is essential to making good policy choices.
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Theory of Change
Drexler's theory of change rests on the premise that the dominant framing of AI risk (autonomous agents with misaligned goals pursuing self-preservation) is mistaken, and that correcting this framing opens up practical paths to safe and beneficial AI. By demonstrating that superintelligent-level capabilities can be delivered through structured service architectures rather than goal-directed agents, and that a 'hypercapable world' of radical abundance reduces the marginal value of dominance, Drexler argues that global cooperation on AI governance becomes both feasible and in the rational interest of all major powers. The primary mechanism is intellectual: producing and disseminating rigorous conceptual frameworks that inform researchers, policymakers, and funders, shifting the overall discourse toward options that are safer and more cooperative.
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- Last Updated
- Apr 2, 2026, 10:01 PM UTC
- Created
- Mar 19, 2026, 10:30 PM UTC