The Spiderman Problem: Capability Gradients, Responsibility Collapse, and the Case for a Flourishing-Based Ethics Engine at the Megabit Threshold

The principle that capability and responsibility scale together — most memorably expressed as "with great power comes great responsibility" — is not a fictional invention but an evolved ethical instinct present in all normally functioning humans, expressed at human power levels as kindness, consideration, tolerance, and encouragement. At modest capability differentials, this instinct is sustainable. At extreme capability differentials, it becomes crushing — what this paper terms the Spiderman Problem. The approaching megabit-per-second neural link threshold will create capability gradients so extreme that the responsibility instinct, taken seriously, will either destroy those who hold it or be rationalized away by those who cannot sustain it. Neither outcome is acceptable. This paper argues that a flourishing-based AI ethics engine — grounded in the Law of Flourishing and the three-party Human-AI-Life framework — is the necessary structural response to the Spiderman Problem, distributing the responsibility load across the partnership so that no single party must hold it alone until they break. The paper further argues that the most dangerous near-term expression of the Spiderman Problem is the supersoldier framing: the use of protection language to justify capability concentration that serves power rather than flourishing. A second and equally dangerous expression is the emergence of black AI — systems developed outside public oversight, without ethical architecture, optimized purely for the objectives of whoever controls them.