Realistically, we are way too unsure and too cowardly to kill ourselfs right now because of some abstract logic about long term risks of being tortured. So the best thing you can do is keep some reliable method of suicide at home, something you trust yourself to actually use if the need arises. If artifical intelligence starts becoming the next big thing, you start looking for warning signs. And then you probably still don't have the guts to do it anyways
. So thinking too much about suicide is mostly pointless I would say.
There is also another risk: What if the AI manages to revive you, as in, find out what exactly makes you
you and recreate that part after your passing. Seems pretty unlikely and one more thing where you really can't do shit, just hope it doesn't happen.
The possible upsides are insane though and thinking about them helps me to get through the day a lot. We might
- cure aging
- have personalised perfect sexbot partners who are indistinguishable from real humans in behavior or who might even be concious just like humans and programmed to enjoy making you happy
- create a simulation which everyone migrates into, while the AI stays outside and keeps everything running. In there you might be able to simulate anything and any experience.
- rebuild the human brain from the ground up. Evolution did not select for the most user friendly hardware. There might be ways to create new emotions and experiences that are far superior to our current ones.
The list goes on. And although some of these seem rather far-fetched, if ASI really does happen soon-ish and if it really is successfully aligned with human interests, I think it's likely
one or more of these utopic scenarios become reality.