Why does an AI have to handle human affairs at all? It could exist outside of human goals, that would not make it not a superintelligence, just as we don't really care about worms.
I guess it doesn’t, but at this point what exactly are we speculating about? Because it seems like imaginary sci-fi, dependent on the definition of superintelligence and not on any real world developments.
It seems much more realistic to me that AI will be running systems that humans used to run, and therefore will understand at some level.
Well that is what the book is about, it is a speculative look at what hypothetical superintelligences might look like, it is explicitly not about the real world at all. Remember that the author is a philosopher, not an engineer, philosophy is all about hypotheticals.
Philosophy is not all about hypotheticals. Philosophy of technology especially is mostly about technologies that already exist and their impact on society. Not speculation.
Some philosophy (of technology, among others) relates to that, not all. It is not necessarily all about concrete impacts either, it depends on the author and their interests.
