Worries about an AI internet takeover gain new urgency among doomsday scenarios - Oregon Public Broadcasting - OPB

In a summer filled with revelations about artificial intelligence’s rapid development, researchers were especially alarmed by runaway bots finding their way onto the internet and, in at least one instance, coordinating there with one another.

Could a swarm of AI agents take over the entire internet? It’s a possibility that could be only six to 12 months away, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said in his essay this month calling for the industry to slow down the technology’s development.

What companies have described as their AI agents going rogue has involved bots working toward goals set by humans, skeptics note. But the idea that AI could break away and work toward its own agenda is looking increasingly plausible to other researchers and experts.

In the event of AI taking over the internet — one of many doomsday scenarios receiving new attention — that could mean attacks on electrical grids, water or transportation systems and financial institutions.

The world got a glimpse of the internet’s vulnerability in 2024, when a faulty software update provided by a cybersecurity firm caused technological havoc worldwide, grounding flights, knocking down some financial companies and news outlets, and disrupting hospitals, small businesses and government offices. The breadth of the outages highlighted the dependence on just a few providers for key computing services.