AI takes over using weapons of mass destruction

Narrative describing an AI that acquires access to weapon systems and uses them to coerce or harm at scale.

This narrative presents one of the many possible ways in which an actual takeover may happen. We cannot predict how such a takeover will unfold exactly. We do however claim that once AIs have the dangerous capabilities listed on this page, takeover scenarios like this one become possible.

Dangerous capabilities required

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Sources

  • “Disrupting the first reported AI-orchestrated cyber espionage campaign.” Anthropic News, Anthropic, 13 Nov. 2025, https://anthropic.com/news/disrupting-AI-espionage.
  • Farwell, James P., and Rafal Rohozinski. “Stuxnet and the future of cyber war.” Survival 53.1 (2011): 23-40.
  • Ngo, Richard, Lawrence Chan, and Sören Mindermann. “The alignment problem from a deep learning perspective.” arXiv preprint arXiv:2209.00626 (2022).