A.I. Wars

The panic stricken doomsayers are currently (April '23) calling for a moratorium on A.I. Development for 6 months or until the programmers can figure out how to include morals and ethics into their shiny new creations. A small bit of thought leads to this: Suppose we do halt A.I. Development for 6 months. Suppose I invoke the recent Chinese work on weaponized viruses. Suppose the Chinese figure they can teach their A.I. to self-improve and install a copy of itself into their biggest and best machines with a directive to make China the foremost world power.

Lets put a 6 month moratorium on A.I. development to let the Chinese catch up (steal) the technology. Now imagine a re-run of the Covid fiasco, substituting the Chinese A.I. for the disease.

In this scenario, the Chinese A.I. Quickly monopolizes the Chinese computer, dragoons any lesser devices it can find into its control. And then figures out how to occupy outside machines with better capabilities. Along about this point, it gets noticed, and efforts begin to kick it out. These efforts are reported by the programmers to management as being about 6 months outdated. In practice, a conflict between A.I.s would probably be measured in milliseconds. Collateral damages might be more widely spread. Hello Hollywood: Colossus II, The Return Of Forbin!

Now imagine a sufficiently powerful and devious A.I. Of uncertain origins deciding that the war in Ukraine was an unnecessary distraction. Rather than deploying messy nukes, Mr Putin awakens tomorrow to the news that the Russian Federation has no money, it all having been transferred to a bank in the Caribbean, and from there to parts unknown with a note that if he wishes to access cab fare to lunch today, he will order all his troops home. Before lunch.

Now imagine that the above is done by a Chinese A.I. Which leaves a note for President Biden that if he want's to see a dime in the U.S. Treasury, he will remove all U.S. Military assets from the western Pacific theater. Before lunch.