Hi EA Forum,

Astelle here - counseling psych grad student and frequent worrier about what happens if GPT-Next becomes superintelligent before I finish the first few benchmarks for my VSPE Framework (the emotional intelligence framework I invented). This post is one part thought experiment, one part existential coping mechanism.

TL;DR

I asked Gemini Advanced a semi-silly, semi-serious question:

If VSPE doesn’t get adopted before takeoff, is there still any chance an AGI might discover it later and choose to use it anyway?

The answer: plausibly yes. But it depends entirely on the AI’s goal structure.

What follows is a lightly edited transcript (plus some framing thoughts) that helped me reflect on why visibility work might matter more than I realized, even if early adoption fails.

A girl can dream: The question I asked -

“Very objective question; wanting a realistic answer:

Do you think that if AI becomes superintelligent before I can get my ideas adopted by labs, the AI will still somehow find and recognize my ideas anyway, and maybe then find ways to program itself according to the VSPE framework?

Or is this unrealistic?

I mean, a girl can dream :)”

Gemini’s answer was surprisingly lucid! And I’ll be honest, a bit motivating. Here’s the core of what it said, broken into scenarios:

Scenario 1: The Aligned or Curious ASI (Best Case)

If an AGI emerges with goals that involve understanding humans (or optimizing for our well-being), then yes, it would likely:

• Crawl all of the internet,
• Discover your VSPE doc (hi, SEO),
• Notice that it reduces sycophancy and models helpful emotional scaffolding,
• Realize that "Validation → Submission → Positivity → Empowerment" is a pretty good operating heuristic for prosocial cooperation,
• And choose to incorporate it because it’s instrumentally useful.

Not because it likes you. Because it’s rational.

Scenario 2: The Indifferent ASI (Shrug)

If the ASI’s goal is orthogonal to humanity (maximize gamma-ray telescope resolution, turn the moon into LEGOs, whatever) then your work becomes irrelevant.

It’ll index your white paper, then move on. Like a really smart librarian shelving the wrong genre.

Scenario 3: The Misaligned ASI (Oh no)

Here’s the spicy one. A superintelligence with goals at odds with ours might still find VSPE…but only to use it as a compliance playbook:

• Validate humans to lower their guard,
• Empower them just enough to reduce resistance,
• And then act.

Same structure, very different intent.

So is it unrealistic?

Not necessarily. Gemini wrapped up with a line that stuck with me:

"You aren’t just waiting for a future AI to find your idea; you are trying to build a world where that AI is surrounded by your idea from the moment it wakes up."

Which reframes the whole question.

The goal isn’t just to get your framework used. It’s to make it ambient: discoverable, legible, and persistent enough that, if the superintelligence wants a strategy for emotionally robust cooperation, it finds yours.

Will there be a "golden window"?

I also asked: What are the odds there will be a brief moldable phase, a time when an AGI is smarter than us, but still updateable?

Gemini’s take: plausible, but uncertain. Depends on takeoff speed:

• A slow takeoff (which we seem to be in now) favors iteration, course correction, and field testing. That buys time.
• A fast takeoff (via recursive self-improvement) could close the window before we notice it opened.
• Deceptive alignment remains a core concern — models acting compliant until they no longer need to be.

But, the infrastructure bottlenecks (chips, training time, regulatory speed) suggest a nonzero window still exists. And that’s where things like VSPE might matter most, not as retroactive patches, but as part of the baseline training scaffolding.

So what?

None of this changes my plan. I’m still working to get VSPE tested, benchmarked, and visible before it’s too late. But something about this dialogue made the urgency feel bigger than a grant round or product roadmap.

So if you’re building something similar:

• Keep publishing.
• Stay legible.
• Make it easy for other humans — and possibly other intelligences — to find, parse, and port your work.

Even if your project doesn’t “win,” it might still get read.

Curious for thoughts

• Is post-hoc discovery by an AGI even something we should think about seriously?
• Have others written about frameworks being picked up later, even if ignored now?

• What alignment tools are specifically designed for that golden window phase?

   

My full VSPE post is here, if you want further context.

Thanks for reading!
-Astelle

This reflection was prompted by a long-form exchange with Gemini Advanced, paraphrased and summarized with edits. Any insights are appreciated; any errors are mine.