[malfist]

ANY online device? Even assuming AI can find vulnerabilities in every operating system, there's no indication that this is actually true beyond a "here's how it could work"

This is the same nonsense that lead to article saying researchers had created a wormhole when all they had done was draw one.

I have a microcontroller with an ROM disk (i.e., physically read only). You're telling me that an AI can find a way around the physics of not being able to mutate ROM and exploit it?

[lisnake]

RAM-only viruses exist.

[RetroTechie]

That's for when the uC is able to execute code from RAM. Some uCs can only execute code from a separate address space (Harvard architecture), that may not even be readable (let alone writeable) by the program itself.

On such a uC the "inject random payload" option would be out. Still possible might be denial-of-service attacks, altering or exfiltrating data etc.

But most stuff online are regular von Neumann machines where -in theory- anything is possible.

[pixl97]

I mean, if it's online it has a network/wireless card and a TCP stack along with at least some amount of RAM, so yea, in theory unless the programming is perfect it could be exploited. Now, it's not going to be used to run AI, but could very well get used in a DDOS or something like that.

[tosti]

I'm relieved my entire network consists of old computers and small, low power network devices. The only dedicated GPUs you'll find is discarded old junk in a cardboard junk box.

Being poor can have advantages :)