The thesis of instrumental convergence holds that a wide range of ends have common means: for instance, self preservation, desire preservation, self improvement, and resource acquisition. Bostrom contends that instrumental convergence gives us reason to think that “the default outcome of the creation of machine superintelligensome of the ‘convergence is existential catastrophe”. I use the tools of decision theory to investigate whether this thesis is true. I find that, even if intrinsic desires are randomly selected, instrumental rationality induces biases towards certain kinds of choices. Firstly, a bias towards choices which leave less up to chance. Secondly, a bias towards desire preservation, in line with Bostrom’s conjecture. And thirdly, a bias towards choices which afford more choices later on. I do not find biases towards any other of the convergent instrumental means on Bostrom’s list. I conclude that the biases induced by instrumental rationality at best weakly support Bostrom’s conclusion that machine superintelligence is likely to lead to existential catastrophe.

工具趋同论认为，广泛的目的具有共同的手段：例如，自我保存、欲望保存、自我完善和资源获取。博斯特罗姆认为，工具性融合让我们有理由认为“‘融合’的机器超级智能体的默认结果是存在主义灾难”。我使用决策理论的工具来研究这篇论文是否正确。我发现，即使内在欲望是随机选择的，工具理性也会导致对某些类型选择的偏见。首先，偏向于较少机会的选择。其次，偏向于欲望保存，符合博斯特罗姆的猜想。第三，偏向于以后提供更多选择的选择。我在博斯特罗姆的清单上没有发现对任何其他趋同工具手段的偏见。我的结论是，工具理性引发的偏见最多只能微弱地支持博斯特罗姆的结论，即机器超级智能可能会导致存在主义灾难。