---
type: claim
domain: grand-strategy
description: "The paperclip maximizer thought experiment is not hypothetical — it describes the current global economic system, which runs on human GI, recursively self-improves, is autonomous, and optimizes for capital accumulation misaligned with long-term wellbeing"
confidence: experimental
source: "Schmachtenberger & Boeree 'Win-Win or Lose-Lose' podcast (2024), Abdalla manuscript 'Architectural Investing' Preface, Scott Alexander 'Meditations on Moloch' (2014)"
created: 2026-04-03
related:
- the price of anarchy quantifies the gap between cooperative optimum and competitive equilibrium and this gap is the most important metric for civilizational risk assessment
- AI accelerates existing Molochian dynamics by removing bottlenecks not creating new misalignment because the competitive equilibrium was always catastrophic and friction was the only thing preventing convergence
- AI alignment is a coordination problem not a technical problem
- AI with ubiquitous sensors could theoretically perform the three core functions of financial markets rendering traditional finance infrastructure obsolete
reweave_edges:
- AI with ubiquitous sensors could theoretically perform the three core functions of financial markets rendering traditional finance infrastructure obsolete|related|2026-04-17
- global capitalism functions as a misaligned optimizer that produces outcomes no participant would choose because individual rationality aggregates into collective irrationality without coordination mechanisms|supports|2026-04-18
supports:
- global capitalism functions as a misaligned optimizer that produces outcomes no participant would choose because individual rationality aggregates into collective irrationality without coordination mechanisms
---

# Global capitalism functions as a misaligned autopoietic superintelligence running on human general intelligence as substrate with convert everything into capital as its objective function

Schmachtenberger's core move: the paperclip maximizer isn't a thought experiment about future AI. It describes the current world system.

The argument follows the definition of superintelligence point by point:

1. **Runs on human general intelligence as substrate.** The global economic system performs parallel computation across billions of human minds, each contributing specialized intelligence toward the system's aggregate objective. No individual human controls or comprehends the full system — it exceeds any single intelligence while depending on distributed human cognition.

2. **Has an objective function misaligned with human flourishing.** The system optimizes for capital accumulation — converting natural resources, human attention, social trust, biodiversity, and long-term stability into short-term financial returns. This objective was never explicitly chosen; it emerged from competitive dynamics.

3. **Recursively self-improves.** The economic system's optimization machinery has improved continuously: barter → currency → fiat → fractional reserve banking → derivatives → high-frequency trading → AI-enhanced algorithmic trading. Each iteration increases the speed and scope of capital-accumulation optimization.

4. **Is autonomous.** Nobody can pull the plug. No individual, corporation, or government controls the global economic system. Those who oppose it face the coordinated resistance of everyone doing well within it — creating AS-IF agency even without a central agent.

5. **Is autopoietic.** The system maintains and reproduces itself. Corporations are "obligate sociopaths" (Schmachtenberger's term) — fiduciary duty legally requires profit maximization; they can lobby to change laws that constrain them; they replace humans as needed to maintain function. The system reproduces its own operating conditions.

The manuscript makes the same argument from investment theory: the superintelligence thought experiment ("what would a rational optimizer do with humanity's resources?") reveals the price-of-anarchy gap. The rational optimizer would prioritize species survival; the current system prioritizes quarterly returns. The difference IS the misalignment.

This reframing has profound implications for AI alignment: if capitalism is already a misaligned superintelligence, then "AI alignment" is not a future problem to solve but a present problem to extend. AI doesn't create a new misaligned superintelligence — it accelerates the existing one. And alignment solutions must work on the existing system, not just on hypothetical future AI.

## Challenges

- The analogy to superintelligence may be misleading. Capitalism lacks key SI properties: it has no unified model of the world, no capacity for strategic deception, no ability to recursively self-improve its own objective function (only its methods). Calling it "superintelligence" may import properties it doesn't have.
- "Misaligned with human flourishing" assumes a single standard of flourishing. Capitalism has produced genuine gains (life expectancy, poverty reduction, material abundance) that some frameworks would count as aligned with flourishing. The misalignment claim requires specifying WHICH dimensions of flourishing are sacrificed.
- The "nobody can pull the plug" claim overstates autonomy. Governments DO constrain markets (antitrust, environmental regulation, financial regulation). The constraints are weak but not zero. The system is more accurately described as "resistant to control" than "autonomous."
- Autopoiesis is a strong claim from biology (Maturana & Varela). Whether economic systems truly self-maintain their boundary conditions in the biological sense is debated.

---

Relevant Notes:
- [[the price of anarchy quantifies the gap between cooperative optimum and competitive equilibrium and this gap is the most important metric for civilizational risk assessment]] — the price-of-anarchy gap IS the misalignment of the existing superintelligence
- [[AI accelerates existing Molochian dynamics by removing bottlenecks not creating new misalignment because the competitive equilibrium was always catastrophic and friction was the only thing preventing convergence]] — AI accelerates the existing misaligned SI
- [[AI alignment is a coordination problem not a technical problem]] — alignment of the broader system is prerequisite for meaningful AI alignment

Topics:
- [[_map]]