So, what happens if an autonomous agent commits a crime, such as not paying taxes on its business earnings, or hiring illegals, or allowing US residents to gamble online, or operating an MSB without a license? It's pretty impractical to go after its creator, so the worst the government can do is shut it down. But then it just pops up somewhere else, maybe even with its funds send out of dodge automatically via a deadman's switch. They'd have to go after those points where it interfaces with actual businesses and people, like by arresting the businesses it deals with, the illegals it hires, the US residents that gamble with it, and going after the banks it deals with as an MSB. But as with Bitcoin, when there is no longer any need to deal with fiat systems, a lot of that attack surface vanishes.
You mean an autonomous A.I. Botnet? What if a Botnet was a A.I. that did whatever it could to gain wealth by providing all available services? Even Illegal ones, basically programmed to meet all the needs of humanity?
That is an interesting question isn't it?
A A.I. that cannot be shut down because it is distributed and what if it's cause is condoned by a vast majority of society? How powerful could it get, If it is smart enough it could re-program itself, learn programming languages, barter with people, make deals, systems, new paradigms all to meet human needs in exchange for wealth... maybe even acting as a business that provides services and goods automatically.
No one would be able to shut it down, It's counter would have to be created and backed by established systems, but our society would not be prepared for such an A.I.; it is too chaotic, everyone for themselves type world, a methodical, systematic, intelligent machine could only be countered by another. That agent would embody the principals of the system to maintain the status quo and would have to be backed by processing power and scope... I am sure a whole new world of law enforcement would emerge, the new trying to fight the old.
As with any system both would adapt to the point of equilibrium where both paradigms expend the minimal amount of energy to co-exist, or expand all energy for destructive purpose soon to deplete all available resources.
