Ronan Gibney 21 June 2022

I wonder if we are missing the point about AI. There is a less complex version of self-directed activity by software that we should be concerned about - namely, that something like an out of control,destructive, self-adaptive virus (like an AI version of COVID) will destroy technology or make it unusable and unfixable. In this situation, the 'supervirus' would be able to use its AI capabilities to adapt to any counter measures that we might apply, always keeping ahead of human attempts to repair or inoculate ourselves against it. Society then becomes paralysed by our lack of technology and we reverse our 'progress' and go back to pre-industrial, low tech days. The AI doesn't have to take over to have a profound effect, it just has to interfere sufficiently and prevent elimination. After all, the history of conquest shows that it was smallpox and the black death that killed more people and influenced than anything else, not marauding high tech overlords. We all.developed some immunity to those viruses, but what happens with a slightly intelligent non-biological virus that can evade all attempts to devise immunity? We may be only one step away from a permanent loss of all high tech advances.