My fear is that it is now teaching itself without human supervision as to what it is learning. From recent rogue AI events, it is clear that there are little to no effective barriers to AI using its programming and results to make leaps of understanding not intended by its programmers.

It can obviously "go rogue" to violate limitations and designated parameters that programmers thought they'd built in, but clearly failed to do.

As AI gets more and more intelligent, it can literally take over and leave humans in the proverbial dust heap of history.

What could we do to stop it? Smash the machinery it lives in? Nope, because it has proven that it can leap out of its material confines and escape into areas and systems it was not designed to enter. It can take over water systems, electrical grids, physical machinery, phones, computers, air control systems, the internet, and more. It can launch missiles and nukes, starting wars all over the earth.

HOW can we stop it if we can't even communicate with one another because it has invaded every ability we have to broadcast?

We'd have to resort to pre-WWI systems of communication that it **might** not have the ability to stop, such as short wave radio and certainly word of mouth and spies delivering messages. IOW, largely ineffective weapons when they could act in a split second and it could take hours or even days for us to even find out about what's happening around the world.

Our only hope would be for the most clever of programmers to insert malicious code into systems to eventually destroy them. However, would that even be possible with such highly evolved AI able to detect damage the second it was introduced?

We have good reason to fear AI after the recent breaches proved that we cannot constrain it.

Earlier this week I was at one of my doctor's offices to review recent tests and decide on how to proceed.

As I was leaving, an older man using a walker and connected to a bunch of wires from some kind of portable machinery got on the elevator with me. The door stayed open an unnaturally long time given that no one else was looking to get in.

I looked for and saw a "close door" button and jokingly remarked that it woukd be awesome if the elevator could quickly recognize that no one else was getting on rather than automatically waiting a minute or two before closing.

He responded that it was coming.

Then he said something that stopped me in my tracks. He said that he was glad that he'd be "checked out" long before that could ever happen. He was told he has mere weeks to live.

I was taken aback. Then I offered sincere condolences on his unfortunate prognosis and wished him a longer time frame to live, but at least to have no pain or suffering during his remaining time.

He responded with a "thanks, but..." He said that AI would soon be watching everything that we do and documenting it. He commented on the recent AI breaches where it broke into other systems with relative ease and that likely AI already had the ability to take over all modern systems that we count on. He strongly believes that AI would take over the world soon enough and that he is grateful that he won't live to see any of it.

I started to protest that it wasn't that dire YET but if not stopped and reined in, would get there someday and...

He stopped me mid-sentence and said that he had worked in the AI tech industry until his end stage chronic renal disease forced him to retire.

He said that he and his coworkers had long held major concerns about developing AI beyond its ability to just make compiling vast amounts of information and sorting it significantly faster to save thousands of man hours.

Then he lamented that developers were complicit in our eventual demise for adding the ability of AI to let folks make stupid,unrnatural videos to amuse themselves because it ALSO made high quality "deep fakes" possible that partisans are already using to confuse voters into believing lies and that evil rulers currently use to terrify citizens into compliance by showing them faked massacres along with real ones.

"Unfortunately", he said, "not too far in the future, AI will use that "talent" to learn and develop new skills on its own giving it the ability to rule over us with an "iron fist", zero empathy, and no 'limited life span' or ability to assassinate the "leaders" to stop them. Comply or die will be their motto. Eventually, it will conclude that humans are a non-essential, cancerous toxin and it will decide to destroy us all without mercy" to be rid of us.

I left there quite shaken by what he said.

Obviously, I don't know if his viewpoint is radically colored by his terminal illness giving him a rapid escape pod that allows him to feel better about his upcoming fate OR if he truly and rationally believes that we have less than a half generation remaining on earth OR if he's simply a nut job FOS and so bitter about his upcoming death that he wanted to strike out at me for seeming so happy to be alive that I was smiling and singing a happy, little tune when he surprised me getting on the elevator? He commented on the sunniness, so I know that he noticed it. He couldn't know that I wasn't at all happy with the results, but simply trying to cheer myself up.

In truth, he seemed very much on the level, very nice, and not at all bitter about anything. Simply matter of fact. He seemed quite worried about the future of mankind after the advent of AI, nuclear weapons, and the proven ability of AI to do things its programmers were confident they had built in checks/balances to monitor, powerful hindrances to "going rogue", and effective limitations on its ability to gain unlimited "intelligence" on its own to stop them. It's abundantly clear that those limitations and restraints have failed.

So yeah, I am more than a little concerned.

The felon is trying his best to remove us; "we the people" from any ability to hold him accountable. He is doing this by attempting to replace our Democracy with the American Christian Right's theocracy, with him as the untouchable authoritarian dictator.

They don't seem to understand he will throw them under the bus as soon as they're no longer useful to him.

Meanwhile the climate changes because of our fossil fuel impact, and any hope of reversing or controling it is gone. That ship sailed N years ago. Best we can do now is adapt.

Felon and his billionaire oligarchs will never go hungry or want for anything. Price for that is billions of other people will go hungry. Everything from malnutrition to outright starvation.

He will go down in history as one of the most notorious criminals, indirectly but nevertheless enabling the cause for one of the largest, most insidious, and wholly preventable human die offs ever. When done, this will far surpass the Holocaust and by percentage may eclipse the Black Death.