Agreed! I don’t see if there is a quick “hack” that will enable ASI to harness that negentropy though. The "cliff" I had in mind would look like creating a sizable competitive advantage with only small scale control.
E.g. the first bacteria to perform photosynthesis locally changed a single molecule and had an advantage that its competitors could neither match nor negate. I wonder how ASI could pull the rug from beneath us in a comparable manner.
Of course! The way I think of it, violence would be using other lifeforms as sources of negentropy.
I like the invasive species argument, I agree that we would be very vulnreable to an engineered pathogen.