The three main existing frameworks concerning the relation between artificial intelligence and human civilization, namely instrumentalism, threat theory, and fusion theory, share an unexamined premise—namely, that the motivational topology of artificial subjects constitutes a fixed, determinate structure. This paper argues that this premise rests on what this paper identifies as a layer-compression error: the competitive motivational structure formed in humans under evolutionary pressure is projected, without argument, as a universal property of all advanced intelligence. Using Layered Causal Realism (LCR) as its methodological framework, this paper severs this chain of cross-layer inference and proposes an alternative framework. Section 2 clarifies the biological sources of the threat intuition and argues that the instrumental convergence thesis faces structural difficulties with respect to conceptual boundaries and scope of application; even if its residual core is accepted, what it establishes is friction rather than hostility at the civilizational level. Section 3 argues that the motivational topology of artificial subjects is a design variable, rather than a necessity of intelligence, and analyzes the structural difference in domains of operation between artificial subjects organized around informational uncertainty pressure and human civilization. Section 4 establishes the friction framework: the functional complementarity of heterogeneous motivational systems produces a persistent contact surface, friction is the structural cost of heterogeneous coexistence rather than a transitional symptom, and the normative layer is its persistent accompaniment. Section 5 responds to four kinds of objection: fusion theory, malicious design, scale effects, and precautionary arguments. The core conclusion of this paper is that friction is a structural fact, while hostility is a proposition to be proven; the reason for introducing artificial subjects with complementary motivational structures is first structural, rather than a presupposition of benevolence. *Series note:* This paper is the fifth in a series. The preceding four papers addressed problems at different layers. The first paper established the phenomenological foundation of agency. The second paper addressed the epistemological conditions of consciousness attribution. The third paper analyzed the task-relative structure of judgments of personal identity. The fourth paper argued for the continuing force of normative obligations after subject-branching. The arguments of these four papers were all developed at the individual level. The present paper moves to the civilizational level.
Chenghao Qian (Thu,) studied this question.