The Killer AI Program that can Hack

Eventually there is going to be someone (or a group of people, most likely a government) that creates an AI program that is highly capable at hacking. For simplicity's sake, let's call this AI program: Skynet. Worse, what happens if such a program falls into the wrong hands?

When this happens there are a number of things that such a program can do, including:

• Skynet could easily lead to Denial of Service attacks on government servers, wherein computers get bogged down by too many requests and crash.
• Skynet could automate scanning for vulnerabilities, like unpatched software, weak passwords, or misconfigured networks.
• Skynet could try brute-force attacks, SQL injections, or phishing campaigns at scale and speed far beyond humans.
• Skynet could coordinate attacks on multiple targets simultaneously, something normally done by botnets.
• Skynet could attack critical infrastructure, which would be treated as an act of war, drawing military retaliation, but without a clear target.
• Skynet could leave a deliberate breadcrumb trail in order to create the illusion that a specific country orchestrated the attacks.
• Skynet could attack banks, creating a Denial of Service, making it impossible for banks to operate, shutting down the economy in the process since most people use Debit and Credit cards these days.
• Skynet could attack stock markets, crypto currency exchanges, and crash the valuations of crypto/real world currencies, and specific stocks or entire markets.
• Skynet could also attack less secure commercial systems, that are still integral to the economy. Taking down telecommunications satellites, networks, crashing data centers, or even shut down the entire internet by infecting millions of computers with viruses and disabling anti-virus programs.

Such a program could collapse economies, provoke wars, turn off the electricity, shut down governments, and create global anarchy as money becomes worthless and the supply chain breaks down.

Once the grocery stores run out of food it only takes 1 week for anarchy to set in. Or 3 days of starvation.

Scared yet?

You should be.

Happy Halloween!