Loading ...Others say it to prepare for a civil war which I think is tenuous, as by definition the last people the govt want to stay fit and healthy during a civil war are the civilians.
A more likely scenario, almost guaranteed really, is Patchmageddon:
TLDR; A patch is issued to fix a bug. AI takes the patch and works out the problem so quickly that it exploits the problem days or weeks before the patch can be installed.
Here’s how it works in practice. After a software vendor releases a security patch, AI can now reverse-engineer that patch, identify the underlying vulnerability and build a working weaponized exploit in minutes. Attacks can begin spreading worldwide within hours. Attackers share everything: exploit kits are open source, offensive AItools are forked and improved on GitHub, and attack techniques are documented by thousands of contributors operating as a decentralized R&D lab. Defenders tend to operate in the opposite model: enterprise AI defense is often locked behind vendor contracts and threat intelligence may be safeguarded as a competitive advantage.
What happens TLDR;
The big picture:
• The principal tail risk would be disruption of a single systemically important provider such as a major grid operator, financial-clearing utility or telecommunications backbone. Previously only state-sponsored actors could target these providers and have been effectively deterred but a failure at this level could cascade across dependent sectors
• For example, a sustained attack on regional energy grids could disrupt critical services like banks, internet hosting providers and cell phone towers. This disruption could eventually exhaust generator supply chains and data centers could begin shutting down
• An attack that takes a major cloud services provider offline for 30 days might disable operational backbones of institutions across multiple sectors. This disruption could degrade networks on which hospital systems, emergency services and financial services all rely and it could also impact Federal Aviation Administration flight operations facilities
• Municipal water systems rely on synchronized pump networks to maintain consistent pressure across distribution lines. A loss of synchronization can cause pressure drops that render water undeliverable or pressure surges that rupture pipes and mains, which can take weeks to remediate
o The safety consequences would be immediate: fire suppression systems lose minimum operating pressure and healthcare and nuclear facilities face acute disruption. Public health risks compound quickly: low pressure allows ground contaminants and bacteria to infiltrate distribution pipes, desynchronized flow rates cause under- or over-dosing of treatment chemicals such as chlorine and fluoride and failed wastewater lift stations can drive sewage backflow into the drinking supply. Eventually, industrial cooling systems serving data centers and power plants as well as agricultural irrigation systems are taken offline.
For me, if the patch is the source for the hack it’s inconceivable that this won’t happen sometime, and probably soon. A real reason to have a supply of food, water and power for a week or two. And of course it could still be a Russia issue – or China, or Iran who have already attacked utilities in the US.