"On Owning Galaxies" by Simon Lermen

"On Owning Galaxies" by Simon Lermen

Author: LessWrong January 8, 2026 Duration: 5:37
It seems to be a real view held by serious people that your OpenAI shares will soon be tradable for moons and galaxies. This includes eminent thinkers like Dwarkesh Patel, Leopold Aschenbrenner, perhaps Scott Alexander and many more. According to them, property rights will survive an AI singularity event and soon economic growth is going to make it possible for individuals to own entire galaxies in exchange for some AI stocks. It follows that we should now seriously think through how we can equally distribute those galaxies and make sure that most humans will not end up as the UBI underclass owning mere continents or major planets.

I don't think this is a particularly intelligent view. It comes from a huge lack of imagination for the future.

Property rights are weird, but humanity dying isn't

People may think that AI causing human extinction is something really strange and specific to happen. But it's the opposite: humans existing is a very brittle and strange state of affairs. Many specific things have to be true for us to be here, and when we build ASI there are many preferences and goals that would see us wiped out. It's actually hard to [...]

---

Outline:

(01:06) Property rights are weird, but humanity dying isnt

(01:57) Why property rights wont survive

(03:10) Property rights arent enough

(03:36) What if there are many unaligned AIs?

(04:18) Why would they be rewarded?

(04:48) Conclusion

---

First published:
January 6th, 2026

Source:
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/SYyBB23G3yF2v59i8/on-owning-galaxies

---



Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.

---

Images from the article:

Political cartoon showing person holding OpenAI stock certificate as AI takeover news plays on TV with nanobots swirling around.
Board meeting with executives, AI system, CEO, and screen displaying Apple Podcasts and Spotify do not show images in the episode description. Try Pocket Casts, or another podcast app.


Dive into a stream of ideas where technology, culture, philosophy, and society intersect, all through the lens of the LessWrong (Curated & Popular) podcast. This isn't a traditional talk show with hosts, but rather a curated audio library of the most impactful writing from the LessWrong community. Each episode is a narration of a full post, selected for its high value and interesting arguments, focusing on pieces that have been formally curated or have garnered significant community approval. You'll hear clear, thoughtful readings of essays that tackle complex topics like artificial intelligence, rational thinking, moral philosophy, and the forces shaping our future. The audio format lets you absorb these dense, often paradigm-shifting concepts during a commute or a walk, turning written analysis into an immersive listening experience. This particular feed is deliberately selective, offering a manageable stream of the community's standout work. For those who want an even deeper dive into the discussion, there are broader feeds available. The LessWrong (Curated & Popular) podcast serves as an intellectual filter, delivering the signal through the noise and inviting you to engage with some of the most rigorously examined ideas on the internet.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 100

LessWrong (Curated & Popular)
Podcast Episodes
"Why You Don’t Believe in Xhosa Prophecies" by Jan_Kulveit [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 9:03
Based on a talk at the Post-AGI Workshop. Also on Boundedly Rational Does anyone reading this believe in Xhosa cattle-killing prophecies? My claim is that it's overdetermined that you don’t. I want to explain why — and w…
"My journey to the microwave alternate timeline" by Malmesbury [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 20:26
Cross-posted from Telescopic Turnip Recommended soundtrack for this post As we all know, the march of technological progress is best summarized by this meme from Linkedin: Inventors constantly come up with exciting new i…
"Stone Age Billionaire Can’t Words Good" by Eneasz [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 23:19
I was at the Pro-Billionaire march, unironically. Here's why, what happened there, and how I think it went. Me on the far left. From WSJ. I. Why? There's a genre of horror movie where a normal protagonist is going throug…
"On Goal-Models" by Richard_Ngo [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 6:36
I'd like to reframe our understanding of the goals of intelligent agents to be in terms of goal-models rather than utility functions. By a goal-model I mean the same type of thing as a world-model, only representing how…
"Post-AGI Economics As If Nothing Ever Happens" by Jan_Kulveit [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 16:38
When economists think and write about the post-AGI world, they often rely on the implicit assumption that parameters may change, but fundamentally, structurally, not much happens. And if it does, it's maybe one or two em…