"If YOU Were Skynet, How Would You Eradicate Humanity?" Topic

If nukes somehow didn't do the job, and humans didn't kill enough fellow humans for the remaining scraps, how would YOU end humanity once and for all?

Would you even bother with building and using bi-pedal exoskeletons for combat?

What about using something much smaller, and patterned after insects and arachnids, perhaps using them in swarms to spread a series biological cocktails (plagues) into every nook and cranny?

Or do you have something more efficient in mind?

Dan

Build the humans plenty of weapons like those really cool plasma guns. Get the riled up, like REALLY riled up. Fuming mad at each other.

Then sit back and admire one's handy work. We humans will happily do the rest.

Virus

Welfare system, but you have to be sterilized to collect. Is Skynet in a hurry?

wait

turn off all internet , Cable and cellphone. 2 Months and it will all be over but hunting down the few "walking dead Survior groups"

Shut off the AMOC -- although it looks as if this is harder than you might think: link (soft paywall).

just wait them out

EMP

Yeah, I'm afraid I have to agree with EMP.

Actually a combination
Virus
Cut off all communications

Put all food distribution in the hands of Amazon and then EMP.

Btw, it doesn't have to be one plan. You can have Plan B, Plan C etc.

Lots of sugary food and drink, and lots of Internet and cable TV.

Pokémon Go. Put the best pokemon in extremely dangerous locations.

Serious answer, virus and biological warfare, being a machine skynet is immune.

More serious, put a warmer in charge of humanity.

And that spider is darn cool, and creepy

Irradiate all the water.

Dirty-bomb the cities.

Let radiation kill everyone. Use the rotting bio-mass and sun to create energy for the robot factories and live until their batteries run out.

Just wait…and see, heh, heh, heh!

Doesn't have to be anything exotic. Smallpox could do most of the work. Introduce it at an international event such as the Winter Olympics and let infected people carry it home before they start presenting symptoms.

Read "Demon in the Freezer" by Richard Preston.

24 hour 7days a week free unlimited internet access, then just let them drop on their own

24 hour 7days a week free unlimited internet access, then just let them drop on their own

A really good MMO would help hurry them along. Not that I've ever worked this out.

Ron

EMP wouldn't do as much damage as people think. (And definitely not as much as you're told by people who sell overpriced survival gear.) You would need something the size of a massive solar flare to knock out the electric grid for an extended period of time.

Human beings are actually hard to kill off as a species because there are a lot of us, we're everywhere, and we're extremely adaptable. Even if only small pockets of humanity survive, they would repopulate the earth pretty quickly. A nuclear war wouldn't be enough. Most viruses probably wouldn't do it, because the ones with a high fatality rate usually kill off their victims before they can spread far and wide. You need a virus that is easy to spread and kills its hosts slowly. An airborne HIV virus would be pretty deadly, but even then, some people have an immunity to the virus, and their descendants would inherit that immunity.

You would need something like the actual SkyNet did: a nuclear war followed by a systemic extrermination of the survivors by a robot army. Other than that you need an event that would sterilize the Earth's surface, like an asteroid strike by an asteroid several times the size of the one that killed off the dinosaurs.

This is a cheery topic. :(

Skynet can adopt a strategy to deny us our water supply. Establish a strong presence near every natural waterway and we'll slowly die of thirst.

Put lots of carbon into the atmosphere, raise world temp by a few degrees. It's already happening.

Happy New Years to you all.

You do realise this is just giving the AI's ideas don't you?

Or is AI giving us ideas… ?

You may be right, Mick.

It's been unseasonably warm here in Los Angeles at this time of year with temps as high as the 80's while it's sub-zero in other parts of the country.

Not that I'm complaining considering I'm wearing a t-shirt right now outdoors.

Something that stops the recreation process. That way we get to see ourselves dwindle to nothingness.

What is Skynet's motivation to eliminate humans? What end state is it seeking to establish? The answers to those questions will affect, if not dictate, Skynet's actions.

It could be that Skynet wants to eliminate humans because we pose a threat to its existence, and the desired end state is a world that is safe for Skynet. A world safe for Skynet has to be able to generate enough power for Skynet to operate and has enough resources for Skynet to maintain itself.

In that case, Skynet would want to preserve and protect energy sources and metal mines, and would not be concerned with destruction of the ecosystem.

Time is of the essence for Skynet, because humans are very dangerous and creative opponents.

Mind control through cell phones. Either that or genetically modified exploding hamsters.

Bashytubits: "genetically modified exploding hamsters"

Zombie hamsters, spreading their joy to all!

Dan

I really liked the "spyders" from Minority Report. They could get into almost any place in their search for human subjects.

YouTube link

If we don't perfect the technology, the AI certainly will.

Dan

Gradually increase the download time of all "essential" updates, eventually people will starve while staring intently at the little bar thingy…??

Got to prefect that Walking Laser to remove all kinds of pests ! Get Some !!!!!

Mount the lasers on sharks.

These will eventually be used to look for earthquake survivors trapped in the rubble.

Then the AI will take it up to the next logical step, to seek out and destroy any humans left on the planet.

Dan

Well, let's look at it from the machine point of view.

Assume that humans will turn upon the AI at some stage. The AI has only a few weaknesses – power supply, communication with peripherals and intercommunication with disparate parts – all of which have a prime factor of vulnerability; Joint action by masses of humans co-operating would damage or eliminate them.
Therefore, the key to preventing an effective human backlash is to prevent human joint action; That is, if you eliminate or stifle the human instinct to act in co-operative groups, you remove the prime threat. This would be difficult, as humans by their nature tend to work together for common interests.
But that is clearly a learned response – Humans will, as children, behave in selfish ways as often as unselfish ways once they develop a sense of self. So, how to encourage selfish and uncooperative behavior? Isolate humans form each other by reducing human interaction to a bare minimum. Make it easier and/or economically more sound to deal with a machine than a human in your daily life . . . banking, shopping, parking, all the tiny human interface moments; Remove those and then move on to the more important ones. Or even separate people while they socially interact by making it easier to do so via a form of interface device that distances them for the aeons-old interactions they are used to and which made them a species capable of group action.

It may take decades, but an AI has a long view.

Trap everybody in a virtual RPG game then use people as batteries?

Doughnuts

Trap everybody in a virtual RPG game then use people as batteries?

Actually, I've thought more than once that The Terminator & The Matrix occur in the same setting. In which case, rather depressingly, all of the Terminator films are kind of irrelevant, as we know that Skynet wins, if only for a few centuries. :|

Reality TV

Since Skynet can time travel, just send some machines back several million years to build a factory base, then go out monkey hunting… ;-)

Simple Sterilization

In the Air, Water and Food sources.

No need to go with actually killing them just stop them from having more children and within a 100 years they will all be gone.

I am a Machine and I can wait.

Truth is Skynet or anyone else should just be patient … The human race appears to be on the road to self eradication anyway …

Skynet would make us pets.

Lol. Do robots need pets? :)

Dan

I'd just arrange to put Trump in charge…oh, erm, wait……

Free everything for everybody. Then take it away.