There’s just so many routes for an AI to gain power.
Internet takeover: not a direct route to power, but the AI may wish to acquire more computer power and there happens to be a lot of it available. Security flaws could be exploited to spread maliciously (and an AI should know a lot more about programming and hacking than us). Alternately, the AI could buy computing power, or could attach itself to a game or tool it designed such that people willingly allow it onto their computers.
Human alliance: the AI can offer a group of humans wealth, power, knowledge, hope for the future, friendship, charismatic leadership, advice, far beyond what any human could offer. The offer could be legit or a trick, or both. In this way, the AI could control the entirety of human civilization, or whatever size group it wishes to gain direct access to the physical world.
Robot bodies: the AI could design a robot/factory combination capable of self-replication. It would be easy to find an entrepreneur willing to make this, as it implies nearly infinite profits. This is closes to our current technology and easiest to understand, already popularized by various movies. Furthermore, this seems the only method that could be done without assistance from even one human, since the necessary components may already exist.
3D printers: technically a subset of robot bodies, but with improvements to 3D printers the factory size would be much smaller.
Biotechnology: biotechnology has proven its worth for making self-replicators, and microscopic size is sufficient. The AI would need to design a computer --> biology link to allow it to create biotechnology directly. We already have a DNA --> protein machine (ribosomes) and a data—DNA system (however companies that produce made-to-order DNA do it). All that is needed is for the AI to be able to figure out what proteins it wants.
Chemo/bio/nanotechnology: Odds are the AI would prefer some alternatives to our DNA/protein system, one more suited to calculation rather than abiogenesis/evolution. However, I have no concrete examples.
Reprogramming a human: Perhaps the AI considers the current robots unacceptable and can’t design its own biotechnology, and thinks humans are unreliable. Besides merely convincing humans to help it, perhaps the AI could use a mind-machine interface or other neuro-techonlogy to directly control a human as an extension of itself. This seems like a rather terrible idea, since the AI would probably prefer either a robotic body, biological body, or nano-techological body of its own design. Would make for a nice horror story though,
There’s just so many routes for an AI to gain power.
Internet takeover: not a direct route to power, but the AI may wish to acquire more computer power and there happens to be a lot of it available. Security flaws could be exploited to spread maliciously (and an AI should know a lot more about programming and hacking than us). Alternately, the AI could buy computing power, or could attach itself to a game or tool it designed such that people willingly allow it onto their computers.
Human alliance: the AI can offer a group of humans wealth, power, knowledge, hope for the future, friendship, charismatic leadership, advice, far beyond what any human could offer. The offer could be legit or a trick, or both. In this way, the AI could control the entirety of human civilization, or whatever size group it wishes to gain direct access to the physical world.
Robot bodies: the AI could design a robot/factory combination capable of self-replication. It would be easy to find an entrepreneur willing to make this, as it implies nearly infinite profits. This is closes to our current technology and easiest to understand, already popularized by various movies. Furthermore, this seems the only method that could be done without assistance from even one human, since the necessary components may already exist.
3D printers: technically a subset of robot bodies, but with improvements to 3D printers the factory size would be much smaller.
Biotechnology: biotechnology has proven its worth for making self-replicators, and microscopic size is sufficient. The AI would need to design a computer --> biology link to allow it to create biotechnology directly. We already have a DNA --> protein machine (ribosomes) and a data—DNA system (however companies that produce made-to-order DNA do it). All that is needed is for the AI to be able to figure out what proteins it wants.
Chemo/bio/nanotechnology: Odds are the AI would prefer some alternatives to our DNA/protein system, one more suited to calculation rather than abiogenesis/evolution. However, I have no concrete examples.
Reprogramming a human: Perhaps the AI considers the current robots unacceptable and can’t design its own biotechnology, and thinks humans are unreliable. Besides merely convincing humans to help it, perhaps the AI could use a mind-machine interface or other neuro-techonlogy to directly control a human as an extension of itself. This seems like a rather terrible idea, since the AI would probably prefer either a robotic body, biological body, or nano-techological body of its own design. Would make for a nice horror story though,