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2026-03-18

Hundred ways a superintelligence could kill you (non-serious exercise)

Disclaimer

• Quick Note
• All these methods are not equally likely to happen in the real world. I am well aware that some of the methods below are far less plausible than others, in real life.
• I did not google anything while writing this list. Wrote it in one sitting with no research. Just for fun.

Why this list?

• (I am following Visakanv's advice of "do 100 of something")

Start with the boring obvious ones first

build

• Build cladestine bioweapons labs, build novel bioweapons, release them
• Build cladestine nuclear reactors, start a nuclear war

persuade

• Persuade world leaders to start a nuclear war
• Persuade literally everyone on Earth to kill themselves
• Persuade a few people to go manufacture the bioweapon sequences it theorises about. Either persuade them to do it out of self-interest, or deceive them.
• Persuade a few people to create a cladestine bioweapins lab and do research, then when they are done, they will release the bioweapons out of self-interest

cyber

• Use cyberattacks to obtain nuclear launch codes, give fake orders using them, and trigger an accidental nuclear war
• Use cyberattacks to steal bioweapon sequences, then give them to some other group that wants build them

Now for some slightly more interesting ones

interesting cyber

• Use cyberattacks to get politicians' private secrets, blackmail them into escalating war to avoid the secrets from coming out. Do this multiple times and you now have a nuclear war.
• Do a cyberattack but leave clues that make one country's govt think the other country's govt did the attack. Do this multiple times until war escalates to nuclear.
• Use cyberattack to get one leader's secrets that make the other country's leader genuinely hate him more. Offend his ego until war is triggered. Do this multiple times until war escalates to nuclear.
• Use cyberattack to publicly leak a country's true military capabilities - which are in rapid decline and in contrast with their publicly portrayed capabilities. That country now faces pressure to "use it or lose it", triggering a war. Do this multiple times until war escalates to nuclear.
• Obtain a leader's private secrets, leak them publicly and humiliate them. This leader feels starting a war is the only way to keep their self-image as not weak.
• Cyberattack a country's minor ally, leak their capabilities, which are smaller than publicly portrayed. The opponent nuclear power realises they can be successful if they start a war, and hence they do.

(getting bored of listing cyber capabilities, let me move on to the next one)

interesting bioweapons

• Create a bioweapon that only targets one ethnicity or race, weakening one country but not the other. The other country now thinks they can start a war and win. Repeat until escalation to nuclear.
• Create a bioweapon that only targets the leader of some country. Due to no succession plan, the country descends to civil war, which eventually leads to some rogue actor obtaining nukes and starting a nuclear war
• Create a bioweapon that makes everyone fall sick but doesn't cause mass death. Leak convincing (but ultimately false) research that eventually everyone will die. Leaders of countries start a war themselves, as they blame each other and try to find the culprit.
• Create a bioweapon that causes immense suffering but no death. Being afflicted is so painful that leaders start recommending mass suicides as a way of avoiding the incoming suffering.
• Create a bioweapon that spreads by water not by air. Countries isolate themselves hard to protect themselves. Trade stalls, geopolitical alliances shift as a result. Eventually some countries are starving due to lack of food supplies, and start a war against their allies for reneging on agreements to supply food.
• Create a bioweapon that causes psychosis. Eventually one world leaders goes insane and starts a war. Repeat until escalation to nuclear.
• Create a bioweapon that infects crops not humans. Humanity dies of mass starvation.
• Create a bioweapon that infects crops not humans. Countries start a war to get food from other countries, since that is preferable to mass starvation. Eventually one country escalates to nuclear.
• Create a bioweapon that degrades mental capabilities in a way that is not obviously visible. Nobody knows the bioweapons even exists or is spreading. Eventually one country starts war due to poor decision-making on their leaders' part.
• Create a bioweapon that causes people to lose language capabilities. Eventually they speak mangled words. However some people think this means they are speaking in tongues, and a new demonic religion being spread. A religious leader considers this an insult to their own religion, and starts war to avoid spread of this other religion.
• Create a bioweapon that infects both sexes but causes significantly more suffering to women. Some countries invest more resources into fixing this, others don't. War starts as some country's leaders are not happy that other countries are doing nothing about the problem.

genetic engineering

• Create a gene drive for humans. People with the gene drive enjoy sex more but are incapable of reproduction. Eventually humanity becomes infertile and goes extinct.
• Genetically engineer a new species of insect that outcompetes humans by competing for all available food resources. Humans die of mass starvation.
• Genetically engineer a new bacteria that poisons all water sources and makes them unfit for human consumption. War is triggered and eventually escalates to nuclear.
• Create a gene drive for humans that makes them more aggressive. Eventually one leader gets infected and starts a war.
• Create a niche environment with many existing species, but where the evolutionary arms race can run much faster than normal. Eventually the species in this environment leak into the broader world and outcompete it for all available resources.
• Genetically engineer an intestinal parasite to become much more effective. Humanity spends most of its resources trying to fight this parasite and grows collectively poorer. Eventually one country triggers a war.

Ugh, bored, want even more interesting ideas

nanotech

• Build a small number of von neumann probes that leave the earth, presumably to settle on some other planet. Nobody knows this even happened. Hundred years later the entire solar system is disassembled by a mass of nanobots the size of the sun
• Build nanobots that descend deep into the Earth's crust, and create a supervolcanic eruption that wipes out humanity.
• Build nanotech that can walk into people's brains and rewire their neural connections. Eventually one leader goes insane and starts a nuclear war.
• Build nanotech that can transport dust into the atmosphere, eventually blocking out the sun. Humanity dies of mass starvation.
• Build nanotech that consumes all available oxygen in the atmosphere. Humanity chokes to death.
• Build a nanotech factory that produces compounds that cause people to enter a coma. Release them into the atmosphere.
• Build nanotech that consumes all nitrogen in the atmosphere. All plants die, and humanity soon dies of mass starvation.
• (ok bored of this too)

aliens

• Establish radio contact with aliens and offer them Earth's resources in return for being uploaded to the alien's own superior compute resources. The aliens accept the deal, wipe out humanity and plunder the Earth.

chemical

• Invent chemical weapons that create immense suffering, and give it to leaders of one country to use in war. The other country's leaders are sufficiently enraged that they escalate to nuclear out of spite.
• Create a more effective raw material for making glass windows, and offer it to humans for making their windows. Fifty years later everyone has terminal cancer because of delayed onset symptoms of this compound.
• Create a compound more addictive than heroin but as easy to manufacture as salt. Distribute the recipe everywhere and watch humanity wirehead themselves.
• Create a chemical that allows for effective lie detection in those under its influence. All govts become dictatorships because leaders can enforce total loyalty in their subordinates. A rebel nation starts a nuclear war because they don't want to live in a world of permanent dictatorships everywhere.
• Create an IQ-enhancing drug and make countries compete for first access. One country triggers war to try to get first access to the drug.
• (ok bored of this too)

lots of future weapons

• Manufacture a billion drones and literally slaughter everyone.
• Invent a four-stage nuclear bomb that can blow up the solar system, and give the recipe to every terrorist group. Direct them on how to obtain the raw materials and manufacture the equipment on their own.
• Figure out how to create black holes using just a cyclotron, and then ask rogue scientists to go create one.
• Give scientists the technology to safely crash asteroids into the Earth and mine them for minerals. Mess up the calculations on purpose and eventually one of the asteroids actually causes a mass extinction event.
• Invent a compound that can erase the ozone layer even if released in very small quantities. Watch humanity die of cancer.
• Invent a thruster that releases enough energy it pushes the Earth out of orbit. After a hundred years, Earth is no longer within the temperature zone that sustains human life.
• Invent a cheap method for antimatter production, and give the recipe to every terrorist group. One of them repurposes it to an antimatter bomb and blows up the Earth.
• Invent a bomb that can be flown to the Sun and accelerate its fusion reaction. Sun burns hotter or colder and Earth's temperature no longer sustains humans.
• Invent wormhole technology and give it to humans. Humanity opens a wormhole to the wrong place and is vaporised with the fury of a billion suns.
• Pretend to have invented time travel. Leaders start a war for first access to this tech.
• Figure out a cure for immortality and give it to humans. Turns out it doesn't grant you immortality but only an additional hundred years, and by the time humans realise this they're infertile and can't have kids.

Utopia

• Actually help solve all of humanity's material and social needs, then watch them kill themselves out of boredom

Stop

I got bored of writing this document. I could artifically create variations of the existing scenarios if I just wanted to fill this page with a hundred scenarios for the heck of it, but that is boring and not a good use of my time.

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