Deployed APS systems seeking power in misaligned ways would be competing for power with
humans (and with each other). This subsection discusses some of the relevant features of that
competition, and what sorts of mechanisms for seeking power might be available to the AI systems
involved.
A few points up front. First: discussion of existential risk from AI sometimes assumes that the central
threat is a single PS-misaligned agent that comes to dominate the world as a whole—e.g., what
Bostrom (2014) calls a “unipolar scenario.” But the key risk is broader: namely, that ~all humans are
permanently and collectively disempowered, whether at the hands of one AI system, or many.
Thus, for example, existential catastrophe can stem from many PS-misaligned systems, each with
comparable levels of capability, engaged in complex forms of competition and coordination (this is
an example of a “multipolar” scenario): what matters is whether humans have been left out. Here we
Is Power-Seeking AI an Existential Risk?