Here’s What the AI Apocalypse Could Look Like

Leah Feiger: OK. This is super helpful for me that we’re dividing it into these three categories.

Zoë Schiffer: I love a bucket.

Leah Feiger: I love a bucket. I want to go through every single one of these. My first question I suppose is, where do the nuclear codes getting pressed, which bucket do they fall into?

Brian Barrett: That’s the one that we actually don’t have to worry about, right?

Zoë Schiffer: Yeah.

Leah Feiger: Tell me more.

Zoë Schiffer: You talk to AI researchers and if you really, really press them, you can get to the three buckets that I just laid out. But then if you keep talking to them, they’ll be like, “Well, there are these other scenarios where AI is in a robot, the robot is walking around, and then the robot can interact with the physical world in a way that’s really, really scary.” But that’s a little further away and they’ll admit it’s a little more farfetched.

Brian Barrett: So I think one thing, Zoë, in terms of your buckets, that I want to carve out maybe a sub bucket or a little pail within a bucket.

Zoë Schiffer: Wow, a pale.

Brian Barrett: No, because you were saying AI creates a bioweapon, AI hacks something, AI whatever, all of which true. But I think there’s a distinct between human guided things that happening there versus AI doing it on its own. I think a lot of people are like, “Oh, how would AI release a bioweapon? That’s crazy.” Which is, yeah, sure, fine. But there are also bad people in the world who might use AI to make a bioweapon and then release it, right?

Zoë Schiffer: Oh, well, I mean, that scenario is one that I think is totally valid. To me, if you say giving people access to information about how to create a bioweapon, someone is going to be dumb enough and reckless enough to actually do it. I’m like, no, totally. People are doing all sorts of horrible, dangerous, malicious things all the time.

Leah Feiger: With inspiration from the internet.

Zoë Schiffer: Right. I buy that that is really, really dangerous. AI doing it completely on its own, again, we’ll talk about the scenario, but that seems to me a little more farfetched.

Brian Barrett: I’m probably going to get pilloried for this, but I do want to take us back to the 1983 film, War Games.

Leah Feiger: No, this is exactly what I think we should be talking about. This is my … Yes. War Games is the … Yes.

Brian Barrett: Because here’s the thing, AI is not going to be pushing the button or turning the keys or whatever, but in War Games, which is about AI basically, a computer almost kicking off nuclear war, it’s more that it made the US think that it was under attack by Soviet nuclear weapons. And so is there a risk then, I assume, I would hope, I’m not an expert here, that we have enough safeguards in place that that would not actually happen here and we have enough satellite technology to be able to confirm various things. It’s fine. But I think the vector that’s probably of concern would be AI triggering some sort of alert that causes a catastrophic series of events.