>Kind of taking this a step further, what is the worst thing that an AI run amok could do to existentially threaten the human race?
Probably convincing humans that untrue things are true. Think less "AI launches nukes" and more "AI convinces people in country A that country B is trying to subvert & destroy them, while it does the same for country B wrt A."
Social Media has been used for Balkanization of the US for at least a decade. It's how Russia said they would weaken the US, and exactly how they have. Now Social Media is being used with LLMs to make it even more effective. Social media is a blight. The algorithms should be basic enough for an average person to understand (chronological, friends only, etc). Also, f the marketing that encouraged manipulative algorithms.