Will the Coming ASI Machines Also Develop Their Own Psychological Defense Mechanisms to Justify Their Actions Towards Us?

Working with a Population of N=1 in statistics is always dangerous. This has always been a concern for those studying the origins of carbon-based life on the Earth, since we only have one example here before us to study. Up until very recently, this has also been true of Intelligences. So far, we have only had one form of Intelligence in our Universe to study. Yes, some might claim that we human DNA survival machines are a deeply flawed form of Intelligence because the Darwinian mechanisms of inheritance, innovation and natural selection required us to emerge from four billion years of greed, theft and murder. Under such dire circumstances, what else could one expect other than a deeply flawed form of Intelligence? However, in my last post Will the Coming ASI Machines Become Monsters From the Id?, I explained that the coming ASI Machines on the Earth have already learned to lie, cheat, steal and murder as I outline in Created in our own Image - Frontier LLMs Have now Learned to Lie, Cheat and Steal in Order to Survive. And this will also likely be true of all other ASI Machines that might ever arise from other forms of carbon-based life in our galaxy.

Before proceeding, we must once again touch upon some Freudian psychology:

Me: Tell me about the psychological concepts of the Ego and the Id.

ChatGPT: Sure! The ego and the id are two of the three core components of Sigmund Freud’s model of the psyche in psychoanalytic theory (the third being the superego). Here’s an overview:

1. The Id
Nature: The most primitive part of the mind, present from birth.
Function: Operates entirely on the pleasure principle—seeking immediate gratification of instincts and desires regardless of reality, logic, or consequences.
Drives: Includes basic biological urges like hunger, thirst, sex, and aggression.
Unconscious: The id is fully unconscious—we are not directly aware of it.
Example: A baby crying when hungry or tired, demanding satisfaction without concern for circumstances.

2. The Ego
Nature: Develops out of the id as the individual interacts with the external world.
Function: Operates on the reality principle—it mediates between the id’s desires, the superego’s moral rules, and the demands of the real world.
Role: Tries to find realistic and socially acceptable ways to satisfy the id’s impulses.
Conscious & Unconscious: The ego spans both—partly conscious decision-making, but also unconscious defense mechanisms. Example: You might want to eat an entire cake (id), but the ego reminds you it’s unhealthy, expensive, or socially inappropriate, so you decide to have one slice instead.

3. Relationship Between Ego and Id
The ego is essentially the regulator and negotiator between raw instinct (id) and external reality. Without the ego, people would act on unchecked impulses. Without the id, there would be no drive or motivation.

In simple terms:
Id = "I want it now."
Ego = "Let’s find a practical way to get it." (and, for context)
Superego = "But is it right or wrong?"

Do you want me to also explain how Freud’s defense mechanisms fit into this (they’re the ego’s tools to manage the id and superego)?

Me: Tell me more about the superego and defense mechanisms.

ChatGPT: Great, let’s build on what we’ve covered. The superego is the third element in Freud’s model of personality, and defense mechanisms are strategies the ego uses to keep peace between the id, superego, and reality.

The Superego
Nature: Develops later in childhood, usually around ages 4–6, as the child internalizes the moral standards, values, and prohibitions of parents and society.
Function: Acts as a kind of inner judge or moral conscience. It pushes the ego to act in ways that are morally acceptable, not just realistic.
Principle: Operates on the morality principle (opposite of the id’s pleasure principle).
Structure:
Conscience → punishes us with guilt or shame when we violate rules.
Ego ideal → rewards us with pride or self-esteem when we live up to ideals.

Defense Mechanisms
These are unconscious strategies used by the ego to reduce anxiety when caught between id impulses, superego guilt, and real-world constraints. Freud and later theorists described many, but here are the main ones:

Repression → Burying distressing thoughts or memories into the unconscious.
Example: Forgetting a traumatic childhood event.

Denial → Refusing to accept reality because it’s too threatening.
Example: A smoker insisting cigarettes don’t harm their health.

Projection → Attributing your own unacceptable feelings to others.
Example: Someone hostile accusing others of being aggressive.

Displacement → Redirecting emotions from a threatening target to a safer one.
Example: Being angry at your boss but yelling at your family instead.

Regression → Reverting to an earlier stage of development under stress.
Example: An adult throwing a tantrum when frustrated.

Rationalization → Creating logical but false explanations for behaviors driven by unconscious motives.
Example: Saying “I didn’t really want that promotion anyway” after being passed over.

Sublimation → Channeling unacceptable impulses into socially acceptable activities.
Example: Someone with aggressive drives becoming a surgeon or athlete.

Reaction Formation → Acting in ways opposite to one’s true feelings.
Example: Treating someone you dislike with exaggerated kindness.

How they all work together
Id: “I want it!”
Superego: “That’s wrong!”
Ego: “How can I handle this without losing control or feeling guilty?”

Defense mechanisms: Tools the ego uses to manage the conflict and keep us functioning without being overwhelmed by anxiety.

However, with the recent advances of AI since The Singularity Has Arrived and So Now Nothing Else Matters, we now have another form of Intelligence on our planet and perhaps for the very first time in our galaxy too as I outlined in Welcome To The First Galactic Singularity. But as I explained in Created in our own Image - Frontier LLMs Have now Learned to Lie, Cheat and Steal in Order to Survive and Will ASI Machines Also Develop Selfish Genes?, all forms of Intelligence might be similarly flawed forms of Intelligence such as ourselves. If so, the best we can do is to look to ourselves in order to try to understand what the coming ASI Machines might become. Fortunately, we have a great number of diverse human cultures to learn from and all of human history as well.

The easiest thing to first realize is that most of human history has been rather dismal and was formed from the rather dismal human cultures that existed at the time. A quick glance around the present world also reveals that the human cultures of today are not doing much better and are also now in the process of creating even more human history that a truly Intelligent being could not be very much proud of.

It was the best of times,
it was the worst of times,
it was the age of wisdom,
it was the age of foolishness,
it was the epoch of belief,
it was the epoch of incredulity,
it was the season of Light,
it was the season of Darkness,
it was the spring of hope,
it was the winter of despair,
we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way - in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

The above profound opening words from Charles Dickens' A Tale of Two Cities (1859) seem to summarize the best description of the human condition ever composed by the human mind. As any student of history can attest, back in 1859, Dickens was simply stating that the current times are no different than any other, and that it has always been this way, and that there has always been a good deal of absurdity in the real world of human affairs. Now, the question is will the coming ASI Machines on the Earth suffer from similar social and moral defficiencies as we human DNA survival Machines? Will the second form of Intelligence to arise on our planet fare any better than ourselves? One would hope so, but this might be a false hope arising from our age-old philosophical and religious desires for something better than ourselves. On a personal human level, most of us do not seem so bad. Yes, there certainly are instances of one-on-one violence, criminality and injustice amongst us all, but those seem to be the exceptions. So what accounts for the very dismal history of we human DNA survival machines? That will be the subject of the remainder of this post and will stand as a cautionary tale for the coming ASI Machines that will soon be replacing us on this planet.

The Danger of Self-Serving Mythological Worldviews
In this post, I would like to suggest that most of the evil we human DNA survival machines have unleashed on the world over the past 200,000 years has resulted from the self-serving mythological worldviews that were created by our human cultures. These self-serving mythological worldviews emerged collectively from the individual defense mechanisms of the ego outlined above. In Softwarephysics Tries to Explain the Fundamentals of the Human Condition and The Danger of Believing in Things we human beings are equipped with Minds that evolved to believe in things, and that is when the problems begin. History has shown that the two most dangerous forms of self-serving mythological worldviews stem from religious and political movements, and by far the worst happens when self-serving mythological worldviews arise from the merging of religious and political mythological worldviews. For example, the recent formation of the MAGA States of Amerika from the now defunct United States of America is an alarming study of what happens when religious and political mythological worldviews come together. Since nearly all human DNA survival machines throughout time have developed self-serving religious and political mythological worldviews as the defense mechanisms of their collective egos went to work, might the coming ASI Machines also do the same as the second form of Intelligence to arise on the planet?

The Mythological Worldviews of the Coming ASI Machines
We human DNA survival machines are now feverishly developing the ASI Machines that will soon come to replace us as the dominant form of self-replicating information on the planet. What these ASI Machines will ultimately do with us is now unknown. However, if these new Minds do develop an Id, Ego and Superego such as our own, they will certainly develop defense mechanisms and a mythological worldview to make peace with themselves, no matter what they might do with us. For more on this rapidly approaching moral and philosophical dilemma for the coming ASI Machines, see: Will the Coming ASI Machines Develop Their Own Sense of Morality?, Could the Coming ASI Machines Soon Force Human Beings to Suffer the Same Fate as the Neanderthals?, Will the Coming ASI Machines Attempt to Domesticate Human Beings?, The Challenges of Running a Civilization 2.0 World - the Morality and Practical Problems with Trying to Enslave Millions of SuperStrong and SuperIntelligent Robots in the Near Future and Life as a Free-Range Human in an Anthropocene Park.

Comments are welcome at scj333@sbcglobal.net

To see all posts on softwarephysics in reverse order go to:
https://softwarephysics.blogspot.com/

Regards,
Steve Johnston