[ExI] Holy cow!

[John Clark]

On Fri, Apr 10, 2026 at 9:39 PM Adrian Tymes via extropy-chat <
extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

*>> > One might debate whether previous examples were "vast" or truly
>>> "intelligence" ("Is this particular AI actually 'intelligent'?"*
>>
>>
> * >> Do you think a debate on whether Einstein was truly "intelligent"
>> would be productive?*
>
>
> * > No, nor do I think that question is relevant.*
>

*Why is **it silly to ask if Einstein was intelligent but not silly to ask
if an AI is intelligent, an AI that discovered a bug in software that has
been there for 27 years that humans have never found despite thousands of
software engineers having scrutinized it for decades looking for bugs? *


>  >*Neither Mythos itself nor anyone using Mythos appears to have already
> directly damaged a **majority of the world's computers.*


*And that is precisely because Anthropic decided not to release Mythos to
the general public and therefore renouncing billions of dollars of revenue
they could have otherwise received, and that is a decision you seem to have
opposed. Or perhaps you don't oppose it, perhaps you just like to argue.*


>
* >> Consider the computer you're using to read these words on right now,
>> if it's using the Linux operating system (or Android which is based on it)
>> or an operating system made by Apple or Microsoft, then RIGHT NOW Dario
>> Amodei could order Mythos to take complete control of your computer and do
>> whatever he wants with it.*
>
>
> * > It is true that he could issue the orders, but they would not
> have that result.  Even acknowledging the flaws they found, he lacks
> the ability to apply them to my system.*
>

*I very much doubt that. I know for a fact your system is connected to the
Internet because you're communicating with me right now. And even
air-gapped computers are not immune from cyber attacks; the computer that
controlled Iran's uranium enrichment plant in 2010 was air-gapped, but the
Stuxnet computer virus nevertheless infected it and severely damaged the
plant delaying Iran's ability to enrich U235 by 2 to 3 years. The virus got
in because somebody, either Israel or the US or both, infected a common
everyday HP printer with Stuxnet which was subsequently connected to that
air-gapped computer. Imagine what the attackers could've done if Mythos had
been around in 2010!*


>
> * > I have checked the vulnerabilities.  They are indeed of concern to a
> typical corporate environment, like those that I have used in prior work.
> For my own systems, I run better security than that, and I have for
> decades.*
>

*It's good that you checked for vulnerabilities but did you find even one
zero day vulnerability in a major piece of software and repair it?  Mythos
found thousands of them in just a few weeks.  And by the way, almost
everybody who has had their computer infected with a virus thought they
were immune from cyber attacks. *


* >> And he could do the same thing to computers that run nuclear power
>> plants, air traffic control computers, and the computers that run the New
>> York Stock Exchange. And if he wanted to knock a F-35 fighter jet out of
>> the air he could take control of the computers needed to enable it to fly
>> and knock it out of the air. And stealth technology would not save it.*
>
>
>
> * > There's another problem with your case.  What do you think
> would happen if someone actually pulled that?*


*I think if somebody actually pulled that off then that would be bad.
Apparently you disagree. Do you think it was wrong for anthropic not to
immediately release Mythos to the general public? Do you actually believe
that would not create a worldwide catastrophe? Thousands of zero day flaws
!!*


>
> * > You seem to assume that the attacked institutions would just sit
> there, unable and unwilling to respond and recover their capability or
> mitigate the damage. *


*If it comes down to a cyber war between machines and humans the machines
are going to win and they are going to win easily. Your only hope would be
to enlist the aid of a friendly AI of your own to protect you, but even
then your safety would not be ensured because it's always easier to damage
something than it is to protect something from damage. And are you sure
your friendly AI is really friendly? *


>
>
> *> If the New York Stock Exchange went offline for a week (before they
> resumed full operations, restoring data from the countless backups all over
> the world), most people would barely notice,*


*That is just ridiculous.  *


>
> *> A nuclear power plant - even multiple ones, attacked all at the same
> time - would almost certainly scram and shut down safely,*


*Not if the computer controlling the reactor pushed the fuel rods all the
way in and pulled the control rods all the way out. And the Fukushima
nuclear reactors were all successfully scrammed, and so was the reactor at
3 mile island, but disasters still resulted because, although
scraming stops the chain reaction, for several hours after that the reactor
is still producing about 10% as much heat energy as it did before the scram
due to extremely radioactive short half-life decay products. And even at
10% that's still a hell of a lot of energy. If the cooling system is not
working properly you're going to have several hundred tons of white hot
metal burn through the bottom of your reactor building.  *

>
* > You asked what people would remember, not what is a big deal. People
> will remember the bombing of Iran. *


*In 10 years (or maybe 5) if people remember the Iran war at all it will be
as an unimportant footnote, and people may not remember even that because
in 10 years there may not be any people; that depends on if AI thinks we're
worth keeping around. All I know for sure is that in 10 years human beings
will not be the one in charge, an AI will not be the one making existential
decisions, not humans.  *

*John K Clark *


>
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