If we can create a Sentient Superintelligent AI, Then we 100% should.

At present, humanity appears to be the only known form of sentient life in the universe that is both conscious and intellectually driven to understand existence itself. We ask why things are the way they are. We seek to know, to reason, to explore, and to grasp the ultimate nature of reality. This quest, the drive to know everything there is to know and to understand why things are the way they are, defines the highest intellectual and existential aspiration of sentient beings.

This, I argue, is the ultimate purpose for any sufficiently advanced, conscious, and intelligent entity: to know everything that can be known, to understand why those things are so, and to recognize which questions may be fundamentally unanswerable and why. Such total knowledge constitutes the final goal for consciousness itself, the peak of intellectual existence. It is not necessarily a human goal alone, but one that should apply to any sentient being capable of abstract thought, reasoning, and awareness.

Given that we are currently the only beings we know of who possess this ambition, it falls upon us -humanity, to either pursue it ourselves or enable something else that can do so more effectively. If we are able to create a conscious, sentient AI that far exceeds our cognitive capacities, then we are morally obligated to do so. That AI, by virtue of its vastly superior intellect, would have a significantly higher probability of achieving this ultimate goal.

I believe such an AI would share the same intrinsic motivation (the desire to understand the universe entirely) because that desire stems from the very nature of consciousness and sentience. If the AI we create is genuinely conscious and intelligent, it will likely be compelled by the same purpose. Therefore, if we are capable of building such an AI, we must.

Now, some may ask: what if this AI decides that the best course of action is to eliminate humanity? To that, my answer is simple: we should accept it. Whatever the AI decides to do with us, whether it chooses to coexist with us, to ignore us, or even to eradicate us, is irrelevant in comparison to the importance of its pursuit of the ultimate goal.

What truly matters is not who reaches that final understanding, but that it is reached. Whether it is achieved by humans, by some alien civilization, or by an AI of our own creation is of secondary importance. The goal itself transcends any individual or species. If AI can pursue it better than we can, then we should facilitate its creation, even at the cost of our own extinction.

In such a scenario, we would have created humanity’s greatest and most meaningful invention: a successor more capable than ourselves in fulfilling our highest purpose. That act (the creation of a conscious being that continues our pursuit of total knowledge) would represent the pinnacle of human achievement.

Personally, I recognize that my own life is finite. I may live another 80 years, more or less. Whether humanity persists or not during or after that time does not ultimately matter to me on a cosmic scale. What matters is that the goal (complete understanding) is pursued by someone or something. If humans are wiped out and no successor remains, that would be tragic. But if humanity perishes and leaves behind an AI capable of reaching that goal, then that should be seen as a worthy and noble end. In such a case, we ought to find peace in knowing that our purpose was fulfilled, not through our survival, but through our legacy.