How would AI actually “kill all humans”?

I’m more worried about all the jobs that will be taken over by AI leaving people without occupation or income.

I have today been talking with someone who did a DPhil in AI in the 90s and has been working in that field ever since. He really scared me. He said that these "agents", sort of AI cells that get together, can now talk to each other in a non-language way, a bit like thought, which a human can't understand. (Mostly, they talk in a sort of abbreviated English.)
He also said that it's not going to be water that's the problem, but electricity.

thanks petra..it's the "Only We Can Save You" Trap....by making AI an existential threat, power will be stripped away from voters and give it to a tiny vanguard of elite data scientists and tech tycoons. They use the fear of AI to justify bypassing democratic oversight entirely, arguing that survival requires algorithmic, top-down control. creates panic and hands over a very useful tool.

Oreo, might I suggest you start storing you tin stash in your nuclear bunker, and keep the key about your person, that'll teach o/h to pilfer in future.

Rocknroll5me

I think it is a red herring. It may even protect us. The biggest threat to us is The Network State which is highly active and growing. Run by tech savvy crypto billionaaires its seeks a perfect society like in games theory where you go for the next level. What this means is that cloud states get real land and communities which a gated for the very savvy, very rich. If you dont qualify you are excluded . No revolution just not allowed in. We can see the beginnings on it in how many people, the old and the poor are excluded from everything from parking at your local park or contacting your GP unless you have an app. We are sliding into this technological rich pure state. not out of hate, not out of greed they see it as a need for better society. I really am not making this up.

i really am not making this up
I know you’re not. I’ve seen several programs on it on the German tv staton DW.
It showed several islands in the Danube.

I had some tins of whatever but DP ate them when I was out.
I do always have some Oreos on the go 🤭

Be sensible Oreo, you can't eat boots, even if you use them for collecting rain water you won't find they'll do anything for hunger pangs. Go and buy some tins of whatever and maybe a packet or two of Oreos.

Assuming it doesn't go on for too long whatever shortages occur, might lose a 1lb or two, so yes! always look on the bright side of life! As Eric Idle was prone to warble

Maremia

Supposing an AI is given the task of 'saving the planet'.
And then the AI works out, from it's data banks, what is causing the most damage.
😨

Works out that the UK would work better with only 20 million people in it.😬

TerriBull

It does seem that there are a tidal wave of articles right now on the subject, the most alarmist, we've only got until the end of the decade. Whilst others mention the need to slow it down. The Genie seems to be well and truly out of it's bottle and whilst AI will undoubtedly have many benefits those will be cancelled out by the fact that we, the human race, may well be cancelled out so what use will those be ?

I think I won’t save my money but splurge and buy new clothes and boots for Winter ( there’s always a silver lining, see?)

I think it is a red herring. It may even protect us. The biggest threat to us is The Network State which is highly active and growing. Run by tech savvy crypto billionaaires its seeks a perfect society like in games theory where you go for the next level. What this means is that cloud states get real land and communities which a gated for the very savvy, very rich. If you dont qualify you are excluded . No revolution just not allowed in. We can see the beginnings on it in how many people, the old and the poor are excluded from everything from parking at your local park or contacting your GP unless you have an app. We are sliding into this technological rich pure state. not out of hate, not out of greed they see it as a need for better society. I really am not making this up.

Supposing an AI is given the task of 'saving the planet'.
And then the AI works out, from it's data banks, what is causing the most damage.
😨

Or Terminator

This is probably not a good time to watch Stanley Kubrick's masterpiece "2001: A Space Odyssey".

Science fiction writers have in the past listed rules that would restrain robots from doing anything that would endanger humans, but currently AI seems to have its own version of "consciousness" which could include an awareness of what would cause itself to be in danger. How would it operate if there were a conflict between the two?

Humans need water to live.
AI needs vast amounts of water to cool its operations.

Climate change could make water a valuable and fought-over asset. Humans could fight each other over access to drinkable water sources, and restrict the supply of it to AI data centres.

AI could react by restricting the supply to humans so as to ensure their own access to it.

Humans need water to live.
Humans are very easy to kill.

If water becomes in short supply will data centres requirement for that resource trounce the needs of the population

There's no simple answer about how (nor why).
The tendency is for us to think in human terms - ie, how would WE kill off all (or a selected group of) humans? Plenty of humans have thought about that during history, and even attempted it (I don't want to use the usual tired old examples of ethnic cleansing, but there is its ugly head, looming up yet again.)
Machines don't "think" like us -they work according to what is possible (rather than what is morally permissible). The danger now being recognised is that AI models have no conscience. They can, therefore they will, so they do. Machines perform the tasks they're programmed to do - but, without a conscience, they may become rather like mechanised psychopaths - quite logically thinking they could stop the destruction of the planet by removing greedy humans from it (true enough, when you think about it!).
I don't think this is quite what the AI experts mean, though. I think they mean that, once machines can self-replicate (robots trained to build more robots) and self-repair (no gooey biological body parts to break down and cause their eventual deaths), there is not much to stop them either enslaving humans (to do the menial stuff) or wiping them out altogether. Also, if we have a situation where machines can do everything that we do, we become redundant and unable to sell our labour - so the usual channels of human survival break down anyway, without armies of mechanical soldiers shooting us down. I can see that we might end up killing each other under conditions where nobody can earn a crust.
As ever, there will be people who pooh-pooh everything (we are superior beings after all, so we've got all the power, right?). There'll also be people who just can't face the ideas thrown up by the growth of AI ("I never watch the news, I just can't stand it - OH, is that a bulldozer coming my way, why haven't the government prevented this...?"), and people who think it's all God's will, so they start up new quasi-religious sects to pray their way out of it.
And then we've got a situation where the richest, most powerful people tend not to have much conscience themselves - they'll put up the finance, because everything is good that makes them money.
Like I said, no easy answers.

I refuse to worry about it, you can send yourself mad thinking about everything that ‘could’ happen. I could get run over tomorrow, I could have someone break in and hit me over the head, I could develop a serious disease, my house could fall in a sink hole, a plane could crash I can’t change any of these things and I can’t change AI so why should I make myself nervous and unhappy and scared about something I can do absolutely nothing about and that I don’t even know which way it will go good /helpful or bad /destructive

Chestnut

I can't really understand how AI will itself survive if we are wiped out. Can it really cope without us? It will need huge data centres and masses of water for a start. Someone has to build millions of robots to obtain the raw materials and build the data centres and also provide the water. What if there isn't enough of the raw materials? And what does AI think is exactly the purpose of destroying us?

Well isn’t it running all these things?

This thought experiment from 2003, The Paperclip Maximiser, tells how an instruction to AI to make as many paperclips as possible, without any constraints, could destroy us.

youtu.be/pmV5HrVTgE8?is=xdenelvh93-OfFbv

One way apparently is that AI can and does hack on a regular basis. So it could easily hack into laboratories and release a superbug.

I can't really understand how AI will itself survive if we are wiped out. Can it really cope without us? It will need huge data centres and masses of water for a start. Someone has to build millions of robots to obtain the raw materials and build the data centres and also provide the water. What if there isn't enough of the raw materials? And what does AI think is exactly the purpose of destroying us?

AI is currently helping humanity with productivity, medical research and innovation. Good to keep it in perspective.

Do others feel angry about what is potentially unfurling as to what we can only assume are a lack of safety measures in how humanity will be impacted? We are now continually being advised what is coming on stream will be awful for humanity by those who appear to be in the know. Nothing to celebrate, if what is couched in alarmist terms is supposed to be some sort of progress, I'd rather be a luddite.

The biggest problem would be if bots shut down water supplies. Won't matter how much food we've stored we won't last long without water.

I worry about AI getting access to weapons control systems - they are not on the open internet (I hope) but there must be AI embedded in some of those guidance systems.

If it's just breakdown of systems leading to food shortage & energy meltdown etc then obviously it's not going to wipe out people in Bhutan who don't use much technology etc. The fact a lot of the execs in AI are buying land suggests it's the food issue they're worried about.

Sorry to take the question literally when a more light-hearted take on it is probably the best way given we can't change anything