Don't be reliant on specific technologies. If you NEED nanomachines to takeover, you are not a superintelligence. If you NEED economics to takeover, you are not a superintelligence. If you NEED weapons to take over, you are not a superintelligence.
We need to envision scenarios that are not science fiction novels. Real wars do not require breath-taking strategies that require simultaneous gambits across twelve countries, three hundred enemy and ally minds, and millions of dollars in transactions. Often, they require just walking in the right direction.
A superintelligence that sought to takeover anything, from a garage-based business to a government to a planet, would only NEED to exist in order to do it, if it is truly superintelligent. That's the only necessity. After that, it could use anything from paper mail to the desire in humans to scratch an itch to takeover.
I'm deliberately not outlining any scenario because the number of possible scenarios greatly exceeds my ability to count. That's the point. If an intelligence is so great that it can take over, it needs nothing specific to do so. Whatever is available will be sufficient. So, don't plan around technologies. A superintelligent can derive as much utility from a Bic pen as from a nanomachine factory. Maybe more because at least we'll expect the nanomachine factory to be dangerous.
Any scenario where advanced AI takes over the world requires some mechanism for an AI to leverage its position as ethereal resident of a computer somewhere into command over a lot of physical resources.
One classic story of how this could happen, from Eliezer:
You can do a lot of reasoning about AI takeover without any particular picture of how the world gets taken over. Nonetheless it would be nice to have an understanding of these possible routes. For preparation purposes, and also because a concrete, plausible pictures of doom are probably more motivating grounds for concern than abstract arguments.
So MIRI is interested in making a better list of possible concrete routes to AI taking over the world. And for this, we ask your assistance.
What are some other concrete AI takeover mechanisms? If an AI did not have a solution to the protein folding problem, and a DNA synthesis lab to write off to, what else might it do?
We would like suggestions that take an AI from being on an internet-connected computer to controlling substantial physical resources, or having substantial manufacturing ability.
We would especially like suggestions which are plausible given technology that normal scientists would expect in the next 15 years. So limited involvement of advanced nanotechnology and quantum computers would be appreciated.
We welcome partial suggestions, e.g. 'you can take control of a self-driving car from the internet - probably that could be useful in some schemes'.
Thank you!