&gt; I&#x27;m still not sure you could assume ultimate power and achieve everything you desired if you were the only hacker news reader on a planet of 8 billion monkeys.<p>I would think it relatively easy for a human armed with today&#x27;s knowledge and a reasonable yet limited resource infrastructure (for comparison to the situation of an unguarded AI) to quite easily engineer the demise of primate competitors in the neighborhood.  Set some strategic fires, burn down jungles would be the first step.  &quot;Fire&quot; might be a metaphor for some technology that an AI might master that humans don&#x27;t quite have the hang of yet that can be used against them.  For example, a significant portion of Americans seem way too easily manipulated by religion and fear, an AI-generated televangelist or Donald Trump figure might be a frightening thought.