Some Ways AI Could Kill Us All

[ed. Nearly everyone agrees by now that AI is an existential threat, but the hows and whys are often vague or imcomplete.] 

I don't think this is how it will actually play out. If you play a chess grandmaster, you can predict that they will beat you even if you can't predict how. I chose these examples because I don't think they require much imagination or accepting exotic assumptions.

It is important to note that if chimpanzees were to guess how humans would decimate them, they would get it wrong. Chimpanzees would not imagine guns. They would not foresee poison gas. They would not conceive of chemical castration. They would not imagine humans going around and intentionally infecting them with AIDS. They have no concept of these things; they would not see it coming.

Perhaps they might guess we'd be really good at throwing rocks. Amazingly good. Well, technically, that's what guns do: throw "rocks" really really well.

So how will superintelligent AI actually wipe us all out? Probably in a way I couldn't conceive of. Nonetheless, it's not hard to see how deadly they could be with what we already know about.

by Ruby, Less Wrong |  Read more:

Image: DALL-E via; and here. 

[ed. I wouldn't necessarily conflate super intelligence with ill-will. Most likely AIs will just be pursuing some unrelated goal and exploring every possible means by which to achieve it (including removing human barriers). That is, unless bad (human) actors are involved, which should not be discounted. See also: How My Students Think About AI (LW).]