Humanity is not a monoculture, and nor is Australia #
14 August 2026
I’m still reading through Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s recently published vision of an AI future, but this paragraph jumped out at me:
Humanity is not a monoculture. People’s diverse values represent different tradeoffs they would make on important issues. There is no technological solution that can align with everyone’s opposing interests and values at once. Any singular superintelligence would have to prioritize some values over others and in the process would be incapable of being benevolent to everyone.
In this context, I think Zuckerberg is discussing the challenges of developing a so-called superintelligence that could comprehend the values of the world’s many varied, disparate, cultures.
Superintelligence, sometimes referred to as Artificial Superintelligence (ASI), sits above Artificial Geneal Intelligence (AGI), which in turn sits above AI. A go to example (for me) of AGI is the HAL 9000 computer, AKA Hal, from Stanley Kubrick’s movie 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Hal appears to be conscious, and is capable of thinking and reasoning as a human would.
It seems to me ASI, which is (theoretically) vastly superior to AGI, should be able to extend its “benevolence” to all the people of the Earth, because understanding each of their cultures would surely be something that level of technology is easily capable of. Meta however is developing what they describe as superintelligence, which may vary from ASI.
But I digress.
I doubt Australian politician, and leader of a far-right party called One Nation, Pauline Hanson, would agree with Zuckerberg’s view that humanity is not a monoculture. Because during her recent appearance at the National Press Club, she declared Australia must exist as a “monocultural society”.
Yes, Australia, the place where people from just about every culture in the world, reside.
Surprisingly, Hanson views AI favourably, although she did call for stronger government regulation of the technologies. But technologies that may recognise humanity, and by extension, the people of Australia, are not monocultural? Can that be tolerated?
No doubt Hanson will be calling for the very strict regulation of that sort of technology.
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artificial intelligence, Australia, current affairs, politics