The Great De-compiling may be Eminent
So far, the AI threat story has run in one direction: corporate AI against people. The best example is the job apocalypse, of course. There’s been entry-level roles vanishing, white-collar work being automated, and layoffs being justified by the promise of AI efficiency.
On top of that, creators' work are being scraped to train the models that replace them, and algorithms for a long time have quietly decide who gets hired, who gets insured, and who gets denied.
But the thing about AI is that it’s a tool anyone can pick up. Over the past few weeks, I've watched an accelerating twist in the plot where AI is being used against corporations themselves, and not just in traditional hacking and cyber-attack ways.
People all over the world are using AI to de-compile and reverse engineer proprietary software and they’ve been releasing the results for free, immediately. It's most visible in video games, where entire game libraries are now circulating online but I’ve seen instances of enterprise software too. I expect a “Great De-compiling” wave to rush over the digital world at any moment and the consequences to revenue for thousands of corporations could be significant.
Many corporate interests have been quick to push for little to no AI regulation, and the U.S. government has largely obliged so far.
That posture assumes AI is something companies deploy, not something aimed at them. I wonder whether that stance holds once the corporations are the ones in the crosshairs.