The Evolutionary Origin of Values: implications for AI alignment, sentience and existential risk
AI systems based on Large Language Models (LLMs) have prompted fears that they may harbor hidden goals, seek to dominate or eliminate humanity, or even suffer as sentient beings. We address these concerns by tracing the evolutionary origin of value in biological organisms. Values emerge from autopoiesis: living systems must actively maintain themselves against perturbation and dissipation. Natural selection has equipped them with hierarchies of "vicarious selectors" that guide their behavior toward fitness. LLMs, by contrast, are allopoietic and allotelic: they produce outputs for others, and their goals derive from user prompts rather than an autonomous drive. They lack the intrinsic mot...
| Authors | Francis Heylighen |
|---|---|
| Primary category | cs.CY |
| Published | 4 August 2026 |
| Last updated at source | 14 August 2026 |
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