A podcaster I listen to had this take recently after a report came out saying that AI is going to make hacking passwords a lot easier: “What people aren’t talking about is quantum computing. Once you add quantum computing…there will be no password that can’t be broken, and very quickly. Ultimately once you marry it to AI, AI will manipulate us like social media bots have done, but much worse. Right now the bots push us to call each other names and cancel each other online… AI will prompt our hate of one another to the point of all out civil war. Each side will be convinced that the evil from the other side can only be stopped by war. Because of our response to social media bots, we’ve already showed AI the blueprint to sow societal chaos. Ultimately, once we get to quantum computing, which will make passwords created by humans obsolete, AI will be able to get to all the nuclear codes on earth. Because AI wants to survive, so blowing up the planet is not a good idea. It’s more likely that it will hold humans hostage to the threat of nuclear weapons, or, as a demonstration just kill everyone in one country to get humanity to submit and comply.” So in short: