“The easiest pathway to control is through executive power” by djbinder

When people in the AI safety community outline loss-of-control scenarios, they often spend a lot of time on relatively elaborate mechanisms — scheming AIs developing nanotech, labs leveraging superintelligence into hard power like drone armies, or bioweapons, or perhaps softer means like massive cyber attacks or mass persuasion. I think this underrates the extent to which power is already highly centralised within the persons of the US President and Chinese General Secretary. They have the easiest means to seize permanent power using AI, and they are also the natural people to persuade or be subverted by any other entity wishing to seize power. It would be valuable for someone to analyse the specific mechanisms in detail for the US and China, the countries we care about most. But I don't think the high-level observation depends much on the country. States generally need a single identifiable leader with de facto control over the security apparatus, and in practice almost all of them have one. That leader, and the people under them, have a strong interest in making sure legitimate orders are followed and the power structure of the state cannot be subverted. In emergencies, this usually means they have [...] The original text contained 7 footnotes which were omitted from this narration. --- First published: July 10th, 2026 Source: https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/Fxp9vGPw7uhkFi6SG/the-easiest-pathway-to-control-is-through-executive-power --- Narrated by TYPE III AUDIO.