One way of dividing the space of possible futures is to consider whether transformative AI will lead to a singleton, which would be a huge change in the world order and a huge concentration of power, or a multipolar world, which would still be radically different to our current world (because of the prevalence of powerful AI), but which would look more like our present day situation of “there are different groups of people with different goals and the ability to realize some subset of their goals.” Whether we end up in a singleton world or a multipolar world is one of the most important questions when considering an AI-driven future (e.g., Takahashi, 2023).

The singleton hypothesis—that humanity's descendents would become a singleton—was first put forward by Nick Bostrom. Bostrom thinks a singleton is more likely than not.