Qiaochu_Yuan comments on "Stupid" questions thread - Less Wrong
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What are concrete ways that an unboxed AI could take over the world? People seem to skip from "UFAI created" to "UFAI rules the world" without explaining how the one must cause the other. It's not obvious to me that superhuman intelligence necessarily leads to superhuman power when constrained in material resources and allies.
Could someone sketch out a few example timelines of events for how a UFAI could take over the world?
Have you read That Alien Message?
No, but I read it just now, thank you for linking me. The example takeover strategy offered there was bribing a lab tech to assemble nanomachines (which I am guessing would then be used to facilitate some grey goo scenario, although that wasn't explicitly stated). That particular strategy seems a bit far-fetched, since nanomachines don't exist yet and we thus don't know their capabilities. However, I can see how something similar with an engineered pandemic would be relatively easy to carry out, assuming ability to fake access to digital currency (likely) and the existence of sufficiently avaricious and gullible lab techs to bribe (possible).
I was thinking in terms of "how could an AI rule humanity indefinitely" rather than "how could an AI wipe out most of humanity quickly." Oops. The second does seem like an easier task.