2040 — ASI Era

A scenario where systems are not just “smart,” but operate with sustained strategic advantage in many domains.

Happy-path focus

• Institutions become more legible (auditable, explainable governance)
• Rights and agency are protected by infrastructure, not vibes
• Abundance is real enough to defang zero-sum politics

Boundary markers

• Closed-source sovereign ASI arms race
• Human autonomy reduced to managed consumption

What to watch

• Compute/energy concentration trends
• Governance experiments that scale without coercion
• The emergence (or absence) of verifiable safety layers