Ah, yes, Prime Intellect, the AGI that went foom and genocided the universe because it was commanded to preserve human civilization without regard for human values. A strong contender for the least evil hostile superintelligence in fiction. What a wonderful thing to name your AI startup after. What's next, creating the Torment Nexus?
(my position on the book as a whole is more complex, but... really? Really?)
It did host a successful and substantially-satisfying human civilization, at least until it let a couple of presumptuous self-important anarchoprimitivists kill it and genocide its subjects. Even if it was only a temporary and unstable illusion of alignment, that's one more values-satisfying civilization than the overwhelming majority of paperclippers manage. So yeah. Good? No. Least evil? Maybe.
>until it let a couple of presumptuous self-important anarchoprimitivists kill it and genocide its subjects
That could have just been their private simulation. As far as I remember, it wouldn't even have outright lied to them, just let them believe they talked it into destroying itself.
Ah, yes, Prime Intellect, the AGI that went foom and genocided the universe because it was commanded to preserve human civilization without regard for human values. A strong contender for the least evil hostile superintelligence in fiction. What a wonderful thing to name your AI startup after. What's next, creating the Torment Nexus?
(my position on the book as a whole is more complex, but... really? Really?)