We’d be lucky to last long enough to see the sun blotted out, if things go this way and we create a superintelligence that doesn’t care about us. It will probably decline something else we need earlier. No idea what, unfortunately I’m not a superintelligence.
Doesn’t change the point of this post, though. We don’t carefully move ants out of the way before pouring cement. Sometimes, we kill them deliberately, when they become a problem.
People will pick traits they want, and I doubt any specific thing other than “doesn’t have disorders” would be universal.
While I have reservations about the tech, leaving it in the hands of individuals seems massively preferable to government regulations on reproduction details. Especially if what you can control gets more precise. Even the worst individual eugenics fantasy has nothing on govt deciding that all children share particular traits and lack others.
It’s also not clear to me where the difference between choosing offspring vs choosing a partner for offspring ever becomes something law should enforce...or even can, while allowing editing against disorders.
Each of these carry assumptions about reality I’m not convinced a superintelligence would share. Though it may be able to find the answer in some cases.
We’d be just as likely for it to choose to preserve out of some sense of amusement or preservation.
To use the OP example: billionaire won’t spare everyone 78 bucks, but will spend more on things he prefers. Some keep private zoos or other stuff which only purpose is anti boredom.
Making the intelligence like us won’t eliminate the problem. There are plenty of fail states for humanity where it isn’t extinct. But while we pave over ant colonies and actively hunt wild hogs as a nuisance, there are lots of human cultures that won’t do the same to cats. I hope that isn’t the best we can do, but it’s probably better than extinction.