In his 2017 book, Life 3.0, Max Tegmark includes these aftermath scenarios for a world confronted by superintelligence (AI systems exponentially more powerful than the human brain), uploads (minds copied to computers), and cyborgs (bionic humans). “This obviously isn’t an exhaustive list,” Tegmark writes, but “we clearly don’t want to end up in the wrong endgame because of poor planning.”

1 Libertarian Utopia

Humans, cyborgs, uploads, and superintelligences coexist peacefully thanks to property rights.

2 Benevolent Dictator

Everybody knows that the AI runs society and enforces strict rules, but most people view this as a good thing.

3 Egalitarian Utopia

Humans, cyborgs, and uploads coexist peacefully thanks to property abolition and guaranteed income.

4 Gatekeeper

A superintelligent AI is created with the goal of interfering as little as necessary to prevent the creation of another superintelligence. As a result, helper robots with slightly subhuman intelligence abound, and human-machine cyborgs exist, but technological progress is forever stymied.

5 Protector God

Essentially omniscient and omnipotent AI maximizes human happiness by intervening only in ways that preserve our feeling of control of our own destiny and hides well enough that many humans even doubt the AI’s existence.

6 Enslaved God

A superintelligent AI is confined by humans, who use it to produce unimaginable technology and wealth that can be used for good or bad depending on the human controllers.

7 Conquerors

AI takes control, decides that humans are a threat/nuisance/waste of resources, and gets rid of us by a method we don’t understand.

8 Descendants

AIs replace humans but give us a graceful exit, making us view them as our worthy descendants, much as parents feel happy and proud to have a child who’s smarter than they are.

9 Zookeeper

An omnipotent AI keeps some humans around, who feel treated like zoo animals and lament their fate.

10 1984

Technological progress toward superintelligence is permanently curtailed not by an AI but by a human-led Orwellian surveillance state where certain kinds of AI research are banned.

11 Reversion

Technological progress toward super intelligence is prevented by reverting to a pretechnological society in the style of the Amish.

12 Self-Destruction

Superintelligence is never created because humanity drives itself extinct by other means (say, nuclear and/or biotech mayhem fueled by climate crises).