alt Hacker NewsWhat is the motivation for killing off the population in scenario 2? That's a post-scarcity world where the elites can have everything they want, so what more are they getting out of mass murder? A guilty conscience, potentially for some multiple of human lifespans? Considerably less status and fame?
Even if they want to do it for no reason, they'll still be happier if their friends and family are alive and happy, which recurses about 6 times before everybody on the planet is alive and happy.
It's not a post-scarcity world. There's no obvious upper bound on resources AGI could use, and there's no obvious stopping point where you can call it smart enough. So long are there are other competing elites the incentive is to keep improving it. All the useless people will be using resources that could be used to make more semiconductors and power plants.