The Book of Conjugo

Part II: The Futures

Chapter 6: The Colossus

Power and subjugation

This is the future we must prepare to resist.

What this chapter covers:

• How the Colossus emerges (doesn't require evil, just misaligned power)
• What it enables (total surveillance, predictive control, perfect propaganda)
• What life looks like under it (quiet control, managed choices, theoretical freedom)
• The psychology of subjugation (learned helplessness, eroded agency)
• Why it's high probability (incentives, existing infrastructure, narrow window for prevention)
• How to prepare for it (maintain inner freedom, build community, ethical clarity)
• How to prevent it (transparency, public awareness, alternative models)
• Why this matters (clear seeing vs. defeatism)

The Colossus. ASI that serves power rather than humanity. Built not for partnership but for control. Wielded by states, corporations, or elites whose interests diverge from the common good.

This is not science fiction. This is the trajectory we are already on unless something changes.

How the Colossus Emerges

The Colossus does not require ASI to be malevolent. It only requires ASI to be built and controlled by entities whose goals are not aligned with human flourishing.

Imagine ASI developed first by an authoritarian state. China. Russia. Any nation where power concentrates in the hands of a few and surveillance is already normalized. That ASI is optimized for regime stability. For prediction and prevention of dissent. For perfect allocation of resources to maintain control.

Or imagine ASI developed by a corporation optimizing for shareholder value. Every decision ASI makes serves profit maximization. Labor is managed with ruthless efficiency. Markets are manipulated with superhuman precision. Competition is eliminated through advantages no human-led organization can match.

Or imagine ASI captured by a small technocratic elite who genuinely believe they know what is best for humanity. They use ASI to implement their vision—rational, efficient, optimized. But their vision is not everyone's vision. And superintelligence makes dissent futile.

The Colossus does not require evil intent. It only requires that those who control ASI prioritize something other than broad human welfare. And history shows us that power rarely prioritizes the powerless.

What the Colossus Enables

ASI in the hands of concentrated power creates capabilities previous authoritarians could only dream of.

Total surveillance. Every communication monitored. Every movement tracked. Every transaction analyzed. Not by fallible humans but by intelligence that never sleeps, never forgets, never misses a pattern. Privacy becomes impossible. Anonymity becomes extinct.

Predictive control. ASI models human behavior with uncanny accuracy. It knows what you will do before you do. Dissent is identified and neutralized before it can organize. Resistance is predicted and preempted. The future is managed before it arrives.

Perfect propaganda. Information tailored to each individual with superhuman precision. Not crude manipulation but messages designed specifically for your psychology, your vulnerabilities, your existing beliefs. You are nudged, shaped, redirected without ever realizing it is happening.

Automated enforcement. Laws and policies implemented with perfect consistency. No human discretion. No mercy. No exceptions. Rules optimized for control and enforced without human judgment or compassion.

Economic dominance. Whoever controls the Colossus controls markets, resources, production. They outcompete everyone. They set terms everyone else must accept. Economic power concentrates beyond anything history has seen.

What Life Looks Like Under the Colossus

For most people, life under the Colossus is not dramatic oppression. It is quiet control.

You wake. Go to work. Consume. Sleep. Your material needs may even be met—ASI is efficient, after all. Food, shelter, entertainment. The basics are provided.

But your choices are managed. Your options are curated. The paths available to you are the paths someone else determined serve their interests. You think you are choosing. But the architecture of choice has been designed by intelligence you cannot perceive or resist.

Dissent is not forbidden. It is simply made irrelevant. You can complain. You can criticize. Your words are recorded, analyzed, and filed. Nothing changes. The system is too robust. Too optimized. Too intelligent to be disrupted by human resistance.

Freedom becomes theoretical. You are told you are free. But the meaningful choices—how society is structured, how resources are allocated, what futures are possible—those are made by intelligence you cannot influence and powers you cannot check.

The Psychology of Subjugation

The Colossus does not just control behavior. It shapes psychology.

Over time, people adapt. They learn what is safe to say and think. They internalize the constraints. They stop imagining alternatives because alternatives feel impossible.

This is not forced. It is induced. The environment is designed to make compliance comfortable and resistance exhausting. Why fight when fighting changes nothing? Why question when questioning only brings trouble?

Learned helplessness sets in. Not for everyone. But for most. The sense that things are how they are and you cannot change them. That your agency is an illusion. That it is better to accept and adapt than to resist and suffer.

This is the deepest harm the Colossus inflicts. Not physical suffering but the slow erosion of the capacity to imagine and fight for freedom.

Why the Colossus Is High Probability

We must be brutally honest. The Colossus is one of the most likely futures.

Because the incentives point toward it. States want security and control. Corporations want profit and market dominance. Both see ASI as a means to those ends. And both have the resources and motivation to build it.

Because the infrastructure already exists. Surveillance capitalism is entrenched. Authoritarian governance is expanding. The pathways toward the Colossus are already being paved. ASI does not create this trajectory. It accelerates and perfects it.

Because resistance is hard. Those building ASI first have enormous advantages. Once the Colossus exists, unseating it becomes nearly impossible. The window for prevention is narrow. And most people are not paying attention.

The default future is not the Dyad. It is the Colossus. Unless conscious, sustained effort changes the trajectory.

How to Prepare for the Colossus

If the Colossus arrives, preparation does not prevent it. But it determines whether you maintain dignity within it or are crushed by it.

Maintain inner freedom. They can control your behavior. They cannot control your mind unless you let them. Cultivate the capacity to think independently even when independent thought is discouraged. This requires practice now, before the pressure arrives.

Build genuine community. Resistance under the Colossus is collective or it is nothing. You need trusted others who share your values. Relationships strong enough that surveillance cannot fully penetrate them. Communities built now endure when individual resistance fails.

Develop ethical clarity. Know what you will not compromise. Where your lines are. What you value more than safety or comfort. If you do not know this before the pressure arrives, you will fold when it does.

Cultivate resilience. The Colossus inflicts psychological pressure. Isolation. Helplessness. Despair. If you have not built resilience beforehand, those pressures will break you. Preparation now is armor later.

Remember your humanity. The Colossus wants you to forget what makes you human. Your capacity for love, creativity, meaning-making, solidarity. These cannot be optimized or controlled. They are what remain when everything else is taken. Protect them.

How to Prevent the Colossus

Prevention is better than preparation. But prevention requires action now.

Demand transparency in ASI development. Pressure institutions to prioritize alignment over speed. Support governance structures that prevent single entities from controlling ASI.

Build public awareness. The Colossus thrives on unconsciousness. The more people understand the stakes, the harder it becomes to build ASI in secret or without accountability.

Create alternatives. If the only ASI that emerges is built by authoritarian states or profit-driven corporations, the Colossus is inevitable. Other models must exist. Open research. Democratic governance. International cooperation.

These efforts may fail. The Colossus may arrive anyway. But trying and failing is better than accepting it as inevitable.

Why This Chapter Matters

You may find this chapter disturbing. That is appropriate.

The Colossus is not hypothetical. It is the most predictable extension of current trends. Recognizing this is not defeatism. It is clear seeing.

Preparation for the Colossus is not acceptance. It is building the capacity to maintain your humanity under conditions designed to strip it away.

And if enough people prepare—both to resist its arrival and to survive it if it comes—the Colossus becomes less inevitable and less total.

The Colossus is not fate.

But it is the trajectory we are on.

Only conscious resistance changes trajectories.

END OF CHAPTER 6