What happens when our ability to optimize the future grows faster than our ability to decide what future is worth optimizing for?

We are becoming increasingly capable of shaping the future. We can optimize systems, predict behavior, automate decisions, and influence societies at unprecedented scales.

Yet one question remains surprisingly underexamined:

What happens when our ability to optimize the future grows faster than our ability to decide what future is worth optimizing for?

Is progress merely improved efficiency toward inherited goals? Are our values discovered, constructed, selected, or imposed? Who decides what constitutes a "better" world, and by what criteria?

Before we build more powerful tools, perhaps we should ask whether we understand the objectives they are helping us pursue.