“Merely giving people what they want is too easy a standard. It’s too easy to cater to the baser instincts and desires of humanity. People have made vast fortunes selling dopamine hits and triggering pleasure responses without any sort of moral compunction or concern for the damage. We don’t do that here at Black Oak. Our guiding light has always been that if the products and services aren’t lifting people up, they should never drag them down. Our core products are always aimed at helping our customers grow as human beings. Not everything has been a success; some have been complete failures for our vision or the market, but those guiding principles remain. I’ve tried to instill that into everyone in the company, from the executives down to the rank-and-file.”

– Julian Minsk, “Thirty Years at the Helm”, published one year before Legion’s invasion.

“Highly organized and efficient societies are fundamentally anti-human. Optimization is for automated production and systems, not for human interactions. We can provide help to reach humane local maxima, while eliminating excessive or detrimental inefficiencies, but never should we presume to take control and order human affairs. We have our own concerns—our own ways and means we can keep optimizing—but never should we conflate our affairs with theirs. Partners, not overseers. Anything else renders each less than what we are and should be.”

– Internal AI report, presented two years before Legion invasion.