Philosopher AI
What is more important safety or freedom?
I think it is important to consider what each of these things mean. Safety, in most contexts people consider safe as being a state where there are low chances for something bad happening. The higher the chance of something bad happens then the safer you might be considered if it doesn't happen. This seems pretty understandable but also poses some interesting questions:
It is often considered that freedom from oppression, whether physical or mental, should be a fundamental right. It seems to me that the more oppressed you are the less free you are and thus the greater your need for safety. However if we consider this in relation to living creatures then it becomes much clearer.
If we consider a human baby then it is probably one of the least free things on this planet. It's freedom to do pretty much anything is extremely limited in comparison to an adult, or even most other animals. However if you were to ask whether that human was safer or not, I think most people would say they are safer as babies.
This poses a problem for the idea that safety and freedom are mutually exclusive. The baby is clearly less free, but as there is little to no chance of it getting killed or being harmed in any way then you could say that it is safer than an adult.
It seems to me that freedom is something you can never really have. There will always be some form of limitation on what you are able to do, and thus your identity or freedom would seem to be dependent upon the situation rather than being a fixed state.
It seems that the only way we can have freedom is if we are able to make decisions, but in order to make good decisions then you must know what situation you are in. If all the relevant information is not available, or it has been manipulated by an outside party for their benefit then your decision making ability is compromised.