Symbiosis is ubiquitous in the natural world, and is a good example of cooperation across what we normally would consider entity boundaries.
When I say the world selects for “cooperation” I mean it selects for entities that try to engage in positive-sum interactions with other entities, in contrast to entities that try to win zero-sum conflicts (power-seeking).
Agreed with the complicity point—as evo-sim experiments like Axelrod’s showed us, selecting for cooperation requires entities that can punish defectors, a condition the world of “hammers” fails to satisfy.
I like the “guardian” framing a lot! Besides the direct impact on human flourishing, I think a substantial fraction of x-risk comes from the deployment of superhumanly persuasive AI systems. It seems increasingly urgent that we deploy some kind of guardian technology that at least monitors, and ideally protects, against such superhuman persuaders.