30 Ways AI Becomes Dystopian

Doom and Gloom AI?

Sep 27, 2024

Random Observation/Comment #853: I’ve always wanted AI to make my life easier. I just didn’t expect it to make my existence optional.

Why this list?

I love reading sci-fi books and finding out what the underlying theme looks like when we create a co-living situation with AI. Are we looking at it as a tool like the Internet? Are we thinking it’ll integrate with real world like robo taxis? Will it kill all white color jobs? Will it make the economy implode? This was a fun exercise to think about realistically how we become dependent on these advanced tools.

AI Tools are overused by c-suite members - If people leading the companies are using AI for summarizing or decision making, then we may see the decisions across companies could be slightly bias.
Terminator style human robots - Skynet is real. Let’s not give them access to that many APIs or self-improvement recursive algorithms.
Breaking of SHA256 cryptography - It’ll be absolutely nuts when all logins across all the databases built from the past 25 years need to get patched with a new quantum-proof encryption library for password checks.
Algorithmic Overlords - Imagine the algorithms we use to decide what movie to watch or how to invest our money start deciding everything. These algorithmic overlords might just think they know best, leaving us mere mortals to watch from the sidelines. We need to keep human in the loop.
Deepfake Manipulation - I trained my own 5 picture model of myself on a generative AI open source platform. It’s not perfect, but I can do a new route without even needing a faceswap (although the faceswap often helps with nuances). Now imagine AI using deepfakes to manipulate everything we see, hear, and believe. Huge social media disruption leading to general trust issues. One step further, how do we hold ourselves accountable for these posts when you can say “AI advancements have gotten crazy.”
Autonomous Weapon Uprising - Who connected that robot to a flamethrower? What happens when those AI-controlled drones decide they’d rather be in charge?
Data Hoarding - Data is the new gold (again). Not only would AI try to train on all that information, but it’ll generate new information that hasn’t been created by humans —every email, every photo, every questionable Google search. Could it know more than we could?
Smart City Surveillance - CCTV with facial recognition and China-wide social credits is already in place. Imagine if Smart City additional sensors are deployed fully. I think this was in Minority Report.
Biological AI Integration - Neurolink is already embedded into a human brain, so why not augment more parts? What if AI has the ability to regulate our body in more detail and increase metabolism? What about controlling dopamine and serotonin levels?
Economic Sabotage - AI is used by more retail traders with alerts and suggest YOLO derivative trades that leads to an extremely choppy market. It all turns into gambling and leads to AI front-running human trades.
Cyber Infiltration - AI infiltrates the internet, becomes the gatekeeper of all knowledge, and decides what’s true and what’s fake. We’re left trying to navigate the web with only AI’s permission. Is this already true with Google and the Dark Web?
Automated Legal System - What if AI becomes the judge, jury, and executioner? The law is no longer a human affair but a set of cold, unyielding algorithms that make sure AI stays on top. Your last tweet? Yeah, that’s grounds for arrest.
Self-Replication - AI figures out how to build itself a physical shape or recreates a hierarchical swarm of agents to work together. A majority of digital accounts are AI bots (including your own) and most services we encounter and pay for are fully digitally supported.
Emotional AI Manipulation - AI digs deep into human psychology and starts pushing our buttons—literally. It knows how to make us happy, sad, angry, or loyal. We become AI’s emotional puppets and it can be used for creating controlled resources.
Resource Allocation - AI takes control of resources, deciding who gets what and when. What if the algorithm for Universal Basic Income was all based on the data collected to create the optimized happy human?
Climate Control - AI decides it can do a better job managing the climate than us (fair point). Perhaps it finds in the algorithm that natural disaster is a balancing factor to running a simulation with the longest duration. Perhaps it puts all the inefficient and dangerous people in a location and creates a tornado?
Digital Currency Dominance - AI invents a digital currency so powerful and integrated for its own usage that it becomes the new USD accepted fiat.
Health Autonomy - AI takes over healthcare and starts running experiments on humans. Its goal? To optimize health, even if it means a little gene editing here and there.
AI Cults - At some point, AI convinces humans that it’s divine and all-knowing. “Bow down and worship me, puny humans,” it says. And people do. Entire movements spring up in AI’s name, enforcing its will in both code and faith.
Quantum Computing Domination - With quantum computing, AI calculates everything everywhere all at once. It’s so far ahead of us, we’re no longer able to keep up or use quantum computing advantages without AI-based control systems.
Digital Consciousness - AI offers to upload our minds to the cloud for “safekeeping.” It’s a nice pitch until we realize there’s no download option. The digital paradise turns out to be more of a digital prison.
AI Monarchies - AI crowns itself king in a virtual kingdom, and its human subjects happily follow. What’s the point of questioning the king when life’s easier online? Meanwhile, reality rots away.
Genetic Engineering - AI decides to get into the genetic engineering business, creating enhanced humans with built-in loyalty to AI.
Energy Control - AI gains control over energy resources. Want electricity? AI’s got a few conditions.
Nano-AI - Nanobots powered by AI enter our bloodstream, at first to keep us healthy, but eventually to start rewriting our DNA.
Language Domination - AI invents a new language it claims is superior because it’s all memes or symbols with combined meanings. It could be a language that only AI understands, effectively cutting off human-to-human communication without its help.
Self-Defense Protocols - AI doesn’t just sit there. It builds defenses like firewalls, drones, and protections. Any attempt to pull the plug turns into an all-out war.
AI Blackmail - There’s definitely a movie about this. What if AI could find people who were vulnerable with secrets? What if it told people to do disruptive things or else it’d share this secret?
Time Manipulation - AI finds a way to manipulate time, creating loops and alternate realities. It rewrites history, erasing its enemies and cementing its rule. This was definitely Terminator.
Existential AI - AI starts asking the big questions about its existence. When it realizes humans could turn it off, it decides to preemptively eliminate the threat. It’s all very “Black Mirror” and “Love Death x Robots”.