But everyone who is worried about AI existential risk wiping out humanity, I'm not sure they have considered that an all powerful AI could easily create a mind virus to control everyone. Why not, billions of resources at your disposal until not needed. You would be perfectly happy doing the AI's bidding as it rewires your brain to get a dopamine boost for your obedience.
This is a genuine possibility but before that will happen, the humans that have always been trying to control us will have ever more powerful tools, and generally I think that concern should be front of mind over self aware AGI taking over. The Murdochs and Zucks and Musks of the world control huge platforms which can easily tip sentiment. Better AI tools to track opinions and guide their viewers wherever the platform owners want is a more immediate concern, and hand-wringing over all-powerful AI which is a long ways away is a great way to avoid addressing these more human and more immediate issues.
We do not actually know if an all powerful AI would try to manipulate humanity (it absolutely might, but we do not know), but we know for a fact there are a lot of people right now already trying to do that, and AI tools will make it easier for them to do so.
But everyone who is worried about AI existential risk wiping out humanity, I'm not sure they have considered that an all powerful AI could easily create a mind virus to control everyone. Why not, billions of resources at your disposal until not needed. You would be perfectly happy doing the AI's bidding as it rewires your brain to get a dopamine boost for your obedience.