But no company has ever managed to parlay this into world domination
Eventual failure aside, the East India Company gave it a damn good shake. I think if we get an AI to the point where it has effective colonial control over entire countries, we can be squarely said to have lost.
Also keep in mind that we have multiple institutions entirely dedicated to the purpose of breaking up companies when they become big enough to be threatening. We designed our societies to specifically avoid this scenario! That, too, comes from painful experience. IMO, if we now give AI the chances that we’ve historically given corporations before we learnt better, then we’re dead, no question about it.
Eventual failure aside, the East India Company gave it a damn good shake. I think if we get an AI to the point where it has effective colonial control over entire countries, we can be squarely said to have lost.
Also keep in mind that we have multiple institutions entirely dedicated to the purpose of breaking up companies when they become big enough to be threatening. We designed our societies to specifically avoid this scenario! That, too, comes from painful experience. IMO, if we now give AI the chances that we’ve historically given corporations before we learnt better, then we’re dead, no question about it.