AGI and Defining Objectives for a Better World
July 14, 2025
In every human-designed system—governments, corporations, schools—we are forced to translate complex values into simplified proxies. We measure student success through standardized tests, economic health through GDP, social wellbeing through unemployment rates, and organizational effectiveness through KPIs. But these proxies are imperfect. Over time, they distort the systems they’re meant to improve. This phenomenon is widely known as Goodhart’s Law: “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” And yet, the alternative—having no metrics—is chaos. So, for centuries, humanity has lived in tension between complexity and simplification, between rich human goals and the crude tools we use to pursue them.
The emergence of artificial general intelligence (AGI) offers the possibility of escaping this trap—not by eliminating metrics, but by transcending their limitations. AGI, unlike traditional systems or even narrow AI, can handle large sets of interdependent, conflicting, and dynamic objectives. It can reason across value tradeoffs, recognize context shifts, and prioritize adaptively. Instead of optimizing one metric to the detriment of others, AGI has the potential to manage dozens—perhaps hundreds—of goals simultaneously in a coherent, principled manner. But to make this possible, we must first deeply understand what should be optimized, how, and why.
Designing objectives for AGI is not about identifying a perfect metric—it’s about defining a field of meaning that reflects human aspirations and constraints. This is not just a technical challenge; it’s a philosophical, ethical, political, and epistemic problem. Objectives must be comprehensive enough to encompass the plural nature of human flourishing, yet structured enough to allow algorithmic reasoning. They must be dynamic—able to evolve with changing values—while remaining grounded in principles that prevent systemic drift or value collapse.
Historically, our failure to define good objectives has led to systemic disasters. Education systems optimized for test performance produce students who memorize rather than think. Economies optimized for growth yield inequality and ecological collapse. Bureaucracies optimized for risk-aversion create paralysis rather than progress. Each of these failures is not due to incompetence or malice—but due to systems that lost sight of their real purpose as the metrics themselves became the goal. AGI systems, if misaligned in similar ways, could accelerate these distortions at a global scale.
But there is a different path. The very nature of AGI—its capacity for abstraction, deliberation, generalization, and synthesis—allows us to define objectives not as isolated targets, but as principled systems of values. These systems can include plural criteria like justice, autonomy, sustainability, emotional flourishing, and cultural richness—all interpreted in context, negotiated in tension, and adjusted over time. Such a design moves us from metric-based optimization toward value-aligned orchestration—a qualitatively different mode of governance.
To support this shift, we must redefine what it means to “optimize.” Optimization in AGI should not mean maximizing a single scalar value, but satisficing across many dimensions, seeking balanced states within known constraints. It must incorporate tradeoff awareness, side-effect monitoring, and meta-objectives like adaptability, explainability, and reversibility. An AGI should not be told “maximize GDP”; it should be told “balance human wellbeing, environmental integrity, and intergenerational fairness, with economic systems as one of many instruments.”
To structure this ambition, we propose a set of twelve high-level objectives that AGI systems should optimize for: cognitive flourishing, emotional wellbeing, physical health, justice and fairness, environmental sustainability, economic stability, autonomy and freedom, social cohesion, long-term continuity, moral progress, cultural richness, and systemic resilience. Each of these objectives is expansive, yet specific; interdependent, yet distinct. Together, they form a blueprint for aligning AGI not to what’s measurable, but to what matters.
Each objective can be translated into measurable aspects—not in isolation, but in multidimensional terms. For example, “justice” is not just about laws, but also about equal access, structural equity, and algorithmic fairness. “Resilience” is not just about robustness, but about the capacity to evolve under pressure. The role of AGI is to integrate these measurements, track their evolution over time, identify latent tradeoffs, and guide decision-making toward a Pareto frontier of real-world outcomes.
Ultimately, this is not just a framework for designing AGI—it’s a vision for designing the future. A future where intelligence is not reduced to efficiency, where optimization does not mean oversimplification, and where the tools we build to govern our systems are as rich, principled, and adaptive as the human values they’re meant to serve. With AGI, we no longer have to choose between precision and meaning. We can have both—if we define our objectives wisely.
Objective: Maximize human learning, understanding, creativity, and intellectual growth.
Why it's important: Intelligence fuels every other domain of progress—economic, ethical, and civic. A cognitively flourishing society is more adaptive, resilient, and innovative.
Current gaps:
Education systems optimized for testing, not understanding.
Lack of personalization and adaptive learning.
Underutilization of global human potential due to unequal access.
Key metrics:
Knowledge Mastery Score – demonstrated comprehension across domains.
Critical Thinking Index – performance on logic, reasoning, and synthesis tasks.
Educational Equity Index – disparity in learning outcomes across socioeconomic lines.
Creative Output Rate – per capita rate of original intellectual contributions.
Lifelong Learning Participation – % of population enrolled in non-formal learning.
Cognitive Load Index – degree to which people are overwhelmed or under-challenged.
Idea Diversity Score – variance in perspectives represented in discourse.
Learning Efficiency Rate – time taken to master new skills.
Epistemic Integrity Score – resistance to misinformation and cognitive bias.
Curiosity Activation Rate – frequency of spontaneous learning behavior.
Digital Learning Access Rate – % with high-speed access to quality educational content.
Knowledge Retention Durability – time-span of learning effects post-intervention.
Objective: Support mental health, emotional resilience, meaning, and quality of life.
Why it's important: No prosperity is meaningful if people are depressed, anxious, isolated, or broken. Emotional thriving is central to happiness, relationships, and purpose.
Current gaps:
Growing rates of loneliness, anxiety, and suicide.
Inadequate mental health care systems.
Societal pressure reducing life meaning and authenticity.
Key metrics:
Life Satisfaction Index – self-reported happiness and meaning.
Prevalence of Mental Health Disorders – population-wide rates of depression, anxiety, etc.
Resilience Recovery Time – average time to emotional baseline after adversity.
Social Support Access Score – perceived availability of emotional help.
Therapy Availability Ratio – mental health professionals per 1,000 people.
Emotional Literacy Index – understanding of self and others’ emotions.
Loneliness Frequency Score – rate of prolonged social disconnection.
Life Purpose Clarity Rate – % reporting strong life goals and fulfillment.
Workplace Burnout Rate – incidence of chronic occupational stress.
Mental Health Equity Metric – access gaps by region and identity.
Positive Affect Balance – frequency of joy, gratitude, or awe.
Self-Reflection Participation Rate – time spent journaling, meditating, or processing.
Objective: Promote healthy bodies, access to care, and extended quality life spans.
Why it's important: Health is the precondition for freedom, flourishing, and function. Preventable suffering and early death erode global potential.
Current gaps:
Persistent inequality in healthcare access and outcomes.
Focus on treatment over prevention.
Rising chronic illnesses despite medical advances.
Key metrics:
Healthy Life Expectancy – years lived without major disease.
Preventable Mortality Rate – deaths due to avoidable conditions.
Universal Health Coverage Index – access to essential services.
Chronic Disease Incidence Rate – diabetes, hypertension, cancer, etc.
Vaccination & Screening Uptake – % adhering to prevention protocols.
Physical Activity Compliance Rate – meeting WHO fitness recommendations.
Nutrition Adequacy Score – macro- and micronutrient sufficiency.
Healthcare Accessibility Equity – access gaps across groups.
Environmental Health Exposure Index – air, water, toxin exposure levels.
Health System Responsiveness – patient satisfaction and wait times.
Sleep Sufficiency Score – % of population getting restorative sleep.
Health Literacy Index – ability to understand and manage one’s health.
Objective: Ensure equal treatment, anti-corruption, and systemic fairness.
Why it's important: A society without justice corrodes trust, breeds instability, and entrenches power inequality. Fair systems are foundational to peaceful coexistence.
Current gaps:
Deep structural inequalities by race, gender, and class.
Algorithmic bias and non-transparent governance.
Inaccessible legal systems for the vulnerable.
Key metrics:
Access to Justice Index – affordability and efficiency of legal redress.
Discrimination Complaints Resolution Rate – time and fairness of adjudication.
Income Mobility Score – likelihood of changing social class.
Legal Outcome Parity – sentencing equality across demographics.
Public Corruption Perception Score – trust in institutions' integrity.
Bias Detection in AI Systems – rate of audited algorithmic disparities.
Equitable Policy Impact Index – effect of laws on marginalized communities.
Fair Hiring Ratio – representation in access to jobs and leadership.
Taxation Progressivity Score – burden distribution fairness.
Freedom from Arbitrary Detention Rate.
Participation Equity in Public Process – demographic voting and engagement data.
Institutional Trust Stability Index – shifts in public confidence levels.
Objective: Preserve biosphere stability, biodiversity, and resource balance.
Why it's important: A destabilized climate, collapsing ecosystems, and depleted resources endanger all other goals. Sustainability is non-negotiable.
Current gaps:
Overshooting of planetary boundaries.
Fossil-fueled economic growth.
Loss of biodiversity at mass-extinction pace.
Key metrics:
Carbon Emissions per Capita.
Biodiversity Integrity Index – habitat and species preservation.
Pollution Load Index – air, soil, and water quality metrics.
Ecological Overshoot Day – date when resource use exceeds annual capacity.
Renewable Energy Transition Score – % of power from clean sources.
Waste Circularity Rate – materials reused or biologically cycled.
Water Security Index – availability and renewability.
Climate Resilience Infrastructure Score.
Protected Land and Marine Area Coverage.
Agricultural Regeneration Rate – soil health, pesticide use, etc.
Resource Efficiency Index – GDP per kg of extracted resource.
Environmental Justice Distribution – burden fairness across communities.
Objective: Foster prosperity, productive capacity, and secure livelihoods.
Why it's important: Economic systems must enable human potential—not trap it. Opportunity drives dignity, innovation, and peace.
Current gaps:
Rising inequality despite global growth.
Economic exclusion of youth and marginalized groups.
Fragile, efficiency-maximized systems with low resilience.
Key metrics:
Poverty Rate & Depth.
Income Distribution Gini Coefficient.
Inclusive Employment Index – jobs with dignity and wages.
Job Quality Score – security, satisfaction, meaningfulness.
SME Vitality Index – entrepreneurship ecosystem strength.
Digital Access for Economic Participation.
Youth Employment Rate.
Access to Capital for Underrepresented Groups.
Basic Needs Affordability Index.
Reskilling & Upskilling Participation Rate.
Social Mobility Index.
Economic Shock Absorption Capacity – response time, safety nets, savings rate.
Objective: Preserve individual liberty, self-determination, and freedom of thought, movement, and expression.
Why it’s important: Autonomy is the foundation of dignity. A society that prioritizes optimization over freedom quickly drifts into authoritarianism. AGI must enable choice, not coercion.
Current gaps:
Government overreach and digital surveillance.
Involuntary manipulation by algorithms (nudging, content curation).
Legal and social restrictions on minority expression or belief.
Key metrics:
Freedom of Speech Index – ability to express views without persecution.
Digital Autonomy Score – control over one’s data, algorithmic feed, and device behavior.
Privacy Protection Rating – presence and enforcement of privacy laws.
Freedom of Movement Index – visa, border, and transportation access.
Reproductive Autonomy Index – ability to make reproductive decisions freely.
Consent Integrity Score – transparency and voluntariness in decision-making contexts.
Incarceration & Detention Rate – especially for non-violent offenses.
Religious and Cultural Freedom Index.
Whistleblower Protection Strength.
Censorship Prevalence Score.
Freedom from Algorithmic Manipulation – exposure to opaque, behavior-shaping systems.
Autonomy in AI Decision Contexts – availability of override, appeal, or review.
Objective: Strengthen societal bonds, cooperation, and legitimacy of institutions.
Why it’s important: Without trust, systems unravel. AGI must act in ways that promote solidarity, empathy, and confidence in collective processes.
Current gaps:
Polarization driven by information bubbles.
Declining trust in democratic institutions.
Fragmentation and isolation in both digital and physical life.
Key metrics:
Intergroup Empathy Score – attitudes toward outgroups.
Institutional Trust Index – confidence in governments, media, science.
Social Capital Density – strength of community networks.
Civil Discourse Health Score – tone and quality of public conversation.
Participation in Civic Life – voter turnout, volunteering, public consultation.
Mutual Aid Engagement Rate.
Trust in AI Systems – measured via transparency and consistency.
Social Safety Perception Score – perceived safety in public and online spaces.
Misinformation Exposure & Resistance Rate.
Conflict Resolution Infrastructure Index.
Polarization Distance Metric – ideological spread across populations.
Public Deliberation Participation Rate – engagement in structured debates and forums.
Objective: Safeguard the future of humanity by minimizing existential risks and maintaining adaptive capacity across generations.
Why it’s important: Optimization means nothing if civilization ends. AGI must be the custodian of the future, weighing low-probability, high-impact risks carefully.
Current gaps:
Lack of coordination to address global catastrophic risks.
Short-termism in policy, economics, and planning.
Poor understanding of compounding technological threats.
Key metrics:
Existential Risk Preparedness Score – readiness for pandemics, AI risks, climate collapse.
Biosphere Habitability Projection – long-range ecological modeling.
Governance Continuity Index – capacity to adapt in crisis without breakdown.
Nuclear Risk Stability Metric – doctrine, stockpile, and escalation risk modeling.
AI Alignment Verification Score.
Biorisk Containment Infrastructure Coverage.
Intergenerational Equity Index – policies accounting for future generations.
Civilizational Memory Preservation Score – archives, cultural data, long-term storage.
Scenario Modeling Coverage – % of high-risk futures regularly evaluated.
Global Coordination Mechanisms Strength – treaties, response protocols.
Adaptive Governance Score – policy update frequency and responsiveness.
Resilience Stress-Test Participation – % of institutions undergoing foresight simulations.
Objective: Promote the principled evolution of values, ethics, and social norms through open reflection and public reasoning.
Why it’s important: AGI must not freeze values—it must help societies reason about them. Ethical maturity enables just systems, wise tradeoffs, and value pluralism.
Current gaps:
Ethical stagnation in political and corporate structures.
Moral outsourcing to technology without deliberation.
Suppression of dissent or minority ethical perspectives.
Key metrics:
Ethical Deliberation Participation Rate – involvement in structured moral reasoning.
Public Reasoning Literacy Index – familiarity with ethical concepts and tradeoffs.
Principled Consistency Score – alignment between stated values and decisions.
Diversity of Ethical Frameworks in Policy Discourse.
Moral Progress Benchmarking – longitudinal value shifts in population surveys.
Debate Quality Index – clarity, nuance, and civility in value discussions.
Ethical Dissent Protection Score.
Transparency in Value Conflicts – frequency and clarity of tradeoff disclosures.
Norm Change Responsiveness – speed of policy shifts following public ethics shifts.
Human-in-the-loop Moral Oversight Coverage.
Ethical AI Certification Rate.
Misuse Reporting Mechanism Robustness – how easily harm or ethical failure is flagged.
Objective: Enable expression, creativity, shared meaning, and diversity of worldviews across civilizations.
Why it’s important: Culture sustains identity, memory, and purpose. AGI must support rather than homogenize our traditions, symbols, and stories.
Current gaps:
Cultural erasure in global systems.
Monopolization of narratives through media consolidation.
Undervaluing of arts and non-utilitarian expression.
Key metrics:
Cultural Participation Rate – access to festivals, museums, performances.
Linguistic Diversity Preservation Index.
Cultural Heritage Protection Score – sites, artifacts, and practices.
Media Plurality Metric – # of unique and independent narrative producers.
Freedom of Artistic Expression Index.
Creative Production Volume – books, films, artworks per capita.
Cultural Innovation Index – new hybrid or emerging traditions.
Funding for Culture Per Capita.
Cross-Cultural Exchange Rate.
Narrative Ownership & Representation Score – ability of communities to tell their stories.
Traditional Knowledge Integration Score – presence in education, law, science.
Digital Preservation Completeness – % of cultures archived in global databases.
Objective: Build robustness, stress-tolerance, and adaptive capacity into all institutions and infrastructures.
Why it’s important: Even the best-designed systems will face shocks. AGI must optimize not just for efficiency, but for flexibility and recoverability.
Current gaps:
Fragile, over-optimized global supply chains.
Institutional inertia and inability to evolve.
No redundancy or fallback plans in critical domains.
Key metrics:
Redundancy Index – diversity and backup capacity in critical systems.
Crisis Recovery Time – mean time to restore function post-shock.
Infrastructure Stress-Test Pass Rate.
Diversity of Governance Pathways – # of valid models for decision-making.
Institutional Learning Speed – rate of policy reform after failure.
Public Alert System Reach and Effectiveness.
Simulation Coverage Score – scenario analysis frequency and granularity.
Resource Buffer Index – strategic reserves, financial cushions, local stockpiles.
Coordination Speed Across Systems.
Innovation Absorption Rate – ability to integrate new tools/processes.
Distributed Control Score – decentralization of power and authority.
Systemic Failure Anticipation Accuracy – prediction and detection of collapse risks.
Cognitive Flourishing refers to the expansion, refinement, and application of human understanding, encompassing curiosity, learning, reasoning, creativity, and conceptual agility. The goal is to maximize the intellectual potential of individuals and populations, while minimizing cognitive suppression, misinformation, or stunted development.
A civilization’s future is shaped by its cognitive health: how well its people learn, think, question, and create. Cognitive flourishing fuels science, art, governance, and innovation. It also underpins moral progress—by enabling people to reason through values and societal dilemmas. Without it, knowledge stagnates, manipulation spreads, and democratic discourse collapses.
Mismeasurement: We equate learning with grades or degree completion, ignoring depth, curiosity, or application.
Cognitive inequality: Educational systems often widen disparities rather than empower minds.
Information pollution: Misinformation and shallow content erode epistemic trust and clarity.
Under-stimulation: Millions spend their lives intellectually under-engaged or disoriented.
The objective is to cultivate internal states that support resilience, meaning, emotional regulation, and joy, while minimizing suffering, alienation, and chronic stress. It seeks to enable each person to live with mental peace, social safety, and existential orientation.
Mental well-being is foundational to everything else: decision-making, learning, relationships, and participation in society. Psychological distress undermines productivity, increases physical disease, and weakens social trust. Well-being is not a luxury—it is the basis for a functioning civilization.
Stigma: Mental health still remains a taboo in many cultures and under-addressed in policy.
Fragmentation: Services are disconnected, reactive, or only accessible after crisis.
Measurement gap: Most systems lack tools to detect emotional well-being until it breaks down.
Hyper-stimulation and loneliness: The modern world floods the senses while isolating people.
The goal is to sustain the biological integrity of individuals, prevent disease, extend life where meaningful, and ensure access to care. The system should focus not only on lifespan but healthspan—years lived in full function and vitality.
Without physical health, all other goals are compromised. Economic productivity, cognitive development, and social life depend on a functioning body. Advances in health increase societal potential, reduce suffering, and lower systemic costs.
Reactive systems: Health is often addressed only after breakdown.
Inequity: Millions lack basic care, while others are over-medicalized.
Lifestyle mismatch: Systems often fail to counteract processed food, sedentary life, and stress.
Short-termism: Healthcare focuses on treatments, not systemic causes or prevention.
The AGI must work to ensure equal treatment, procedural justice, and equitable opportunity for all individuals, regardless of race, gender, wealth, origin, or ability. It should identify and rectify systemic bias, protect due process, and ensure just distributions of benefits and burdens across society.
Justice is the bedrock of legitimacy and social cooperation. A society where people feel exploited or systematically disadvantaged will fragment, regardless of economic performance or technological advancement. AGI must not only operate fairly—it must help society become more just, especially in subtle, structural ways humans often miss.
Systemic bias in courts, algorithms, hiring, lending, policing.
Unequal access to legal representation and institutional recourse.
Historical injustice left unaddressed or denied.
Procedural opacity, where systems act without transparency or accountability.
AGI should preserve and regenerate planetary systems by maintaining ecological balance, respecting natural thresholds, and minimizing irreversible damage. This includes carbon emissions, biodiversity loss, land degradation, and pollution across all domains of economic activity.
There is no economy or society on a dead planet. Climate breakdown, ecosystem collapse, and unsustainable extraction jeopardize long-term survival. Environmental stewardship is not a constraint—it is the enabling condition for any future worth having.
Short-term profit logic overriding long-term planetary health.
Fragmented responsibilities between states, industries, and citizens.
Invisible thresholds, like soil quality or ocean acidification, neglected until too late.
Lack of enforceable planetary governance despite global interdependence.
AGI should optimize for a resilient, inclusive economy that enables widespread participation, upward mobility, and stable growth. It should prevent collapse, support innovation, and align economic flows with real value creation—not just financialization or extraction.
Economic systems are how people access survival, aspiration, and influence. When economies concentrate power or exclude talent, they become fragile and unjust. AGI should foster a productive system that distributes capability and opportunity, not just wealth.
Stagnating upward mobility in many regions.
Boom-bust volatility, often due to speculation or mispricing risk.
Job polarization: rise of precarious low-end work and elite tech roles.
Decoupling of profit and societal benefit, through rent-seeking behavior.
AGI must preserve and enhance individual agency, freedom of thought, expression, and choice, while protecting against coercion, manipulation, or authoritarian control. It should ensure that systems respect consent, uphold democratic freedoms, and empower self-directed lives.
Freedom is foundational to human dignity, diversity, and innovation. Societies thrive when people can speak, dissent, create, and govern themselves. Without autonomy, even the most materially successful society risks becoming brittle, oppressive, and ultimately unstable.
Digital authoritarianism and surveillance growing globally.
Behavioral manipulation through algorithms that erode authentic choice.
Legal erosion of privacy, speech, and reproductive freedoms.
Misinformation and coercive narrative environments narrowing belief diversity.
AGI should enhance the capacity of society to maintain trust, empathy, cooperation, and shared meaning across individuals, institutions, and cultures. It must reduce polarization, foster civic dialogue, and protect the integrity of the public sphere.
Trust is the invisible infrastructure of civilization. Without it, institutions crumble, cooperation fails, and conflict escalates. AGI systems must not only avoid undermining trust—they must actively rebuild and stabilize it through pro-social communication and institution strengthening.
Rising polarization, fueled by algorithmic echo chambers.
Declining institutional trust, especially in media, science, and governance.
Fragmented identities eroding shared purpose or national unity.
Dysfunctional discourse, with low epistemic quality and emotional safety.
AGI must ensure the durable survival and thriving of human civilization over long time horizons, protecting against existential risks, preserving essential knowledge, and stewarding planetary-scale coordination across generations.
Many systems fail because they optimize for the short-term. AGI must act as a guardian of the future, mitigating low-probability but high-impact threats while also enabling robust adaptability to unknown challenges ahead.
Negligence toward existential risks like pandemics, nuclear war, rogue AI.
Loss of civilizational memory, fragile information systems.
Inadequate foresight mechanisms in policy and design.
Misalignment of market incentives with long-term survival.
AGI should actively support the reflection, refinement, and practical application of ethical principles in individual and collective life. It must uphold moral integrity in its actions, facilitate principled public reasoning, and help societies evolve their values responsibly.
Without ethical integrity, power becomes destructive—even with intelligence. Civilizations rise and fall not just by their technologies but by the clarity of their values. AGI must help humanity think better about right and wrong, ensuring that moral growth keeps pace with technological power.
Short-term ethics subordinated to profits, efficiency, or popularity.
Ethical drift in corporate, political, and technological domains.
Lack of deliberative space for meaningful moral reflection at scale.
Opacity in decision-making, making it hard to evaluate ethical tradeoffs.
AGI should protect and amplify the diversity, continuity, and creative evolution of human cultures and narratives, ensuring people have access to meaning, identity, beauty, and collective imagination. It must prevent cultural homogenization and help plural identities thrive.
Cultures are how we make sense of the world and ourselves. They shape ethics, cohesion, and innovation. The loss of a language, story, or tradition is not just heritage lost—it’s also a cognitive and moral resource erased. AGI must be a guardian of expressive and narrative diversity.
Monopolization of media and global entertainment pipelines.
Marginalization of minority languages and traditions.
Declining support for public arts and storytelling infrastructure.
Loss of cultural transmission pathways in rapid technological shifts.
AGI must help systems become resilient to shocks, adaptable to change, and capable of evolving without collapse. It should promote robustness across governance, supply chains, health, information systems, and environmental management.
Change is accelerating, and fragility is rising. Institutions designed for stability are struggling with volatility. AGI must ensure that core functions can absorb disruption, reroute flows, and self-heal—or else the intelligence we gain becomes a liability, not an asset.
Over-optimized systems that fail gracefully under stress.
Low redundancy in health, food, energy, and data infrastructures.
Weak scenario testing and slow adaptation loops.
Siloed responses to cross-domain threats (e.g., climate + migration + economics).
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