Hell, it’s definitely worth us thinking about it for at least half a second. Probably a lot more than that. It could have huge implications if we discovered that there was evidence of any kind of powerful agent affecting the world, Matrix-esque or not. Maybe we could get into heaven by praying to it, or maybe it would reward us based on the number of paperclips we created per day. Maybe it wouldn’t care about us, maybe it would actively want to cause us pain. Maybe we could use it, maybe it poses an existential risk. All sorts of possible scenarios there, and the only way to tell what actions are appropriate is to examine… the… evidence… oh right. There is none, because in reality we don’t live in the Matrix and there isn’t any superintelligence out there in our universe. So we file away the thought, with a note that if we ever do run into evidence of such a thing (improbable events with no apparent likely cause) that we should pull it back out and check. But that’s not the same as thinking about it. In reality, we don’t live in that world, and to the extent that is true then the answer to “what do we do about it” is “exactly what we’ve always done.”
Hell, it’s definitely worth us thinking about it for at least half a second. Probably a lot more than that. It could have huge implications if we discovered that there was evidence of any kind of powerful agent affecting the world, Matrix-esque or not. Maybe we could get into heaven by praying to it, or maybe it would reward us based on the number of paperclips we created per day. Maybe it wouldn’t care about us, maybe it would actively want to cause us pain. Maybe we could use it, maybe it poses an existential risk. All sorts of possible scenarios there, and the only way to tell what actions are appropriate is to examine… the… evidence… oh right. There is none, because in reality we don’t live in the Matrix and there isn’t any superintelligence out there in our universe. So we file away the thought, with a note that if we ever do run into evidence of such a thing (improbable events with no apparent likely cause) that we should pull it back out and check. But that’s not the same as thinking about it. In reality, we don’t live in that world, and to the extent that is true then the answer to “what do we do about it” is “exactly what we’ve always done.”