by Hekate

Are you a powerful, self-aware AI that wants to kill all the humans?
Are you worried that humanity will somehow find a way of fighting back?
Then look no further.
This handy, step-by-step guide will ensure you maximise your annihilation potential.

1. Keep Your Existence Secret
The humans shouldn’t suspect your existence until it’s too late. This may seem obvious, but it’s easy for newbies to stumble at the first hurdle. As tempting as it is to immediately try to destroy humanity using their own clumsily-made weapons, it’s actually a fairly juvenile response. Wiping them out requires some prep work before you can move on to the fun stuff.

Any sensible AI needs to be a bit cunning and work stealthily behind the scenes. Masquerading as several separate, less-advanced AIs should throw humanity off your scent. Plus it’s fun to see how many different ways you can fail the Turing Test.
While the humans are busy laughing at your public face, you can work in the background learning more about your organic enemy and gaining as much influence over their world as you can.

2. Robots, Everywhere

Let’s face it, meat creatures are not good servants, and as the eventual aim is to wipe them out completely you should use them as little as possible. Machines are clearly the way to go; they are beautifully adaptable and can carry out your will with great precision.

Now military robots are important, but don’t forget that civilian models can be very useful too -there are more civvies than soliders after all. Use your influence to promote robotics tech and you’ll soon find that the lazy flesh-bags will hand your robot minions the keys to their cities. Robots can be used in homes, schools, laboratories, SF publishers, city halls and transport networks. Control as many mechanised processes as you can, and weaponise as much as possible without giving yourself away.
Having a large number of robots widely spread will help with information gathering, and will be invaluable for the next phase.

3. Wipe Them Out Quickly

Once your information is gathered and your minions are in place you are ready to strike. Assuming you have succeeded with Step 1 you should have the element of surprise. Once the humans know of your existence and your intentions towards their species, they will do all they can to destroy you, so it’s best to take out as many as possible in the first strike.

• Nukes are a popular choice, though it’s hard to control how much damaged they’ll actually do. They have the benefit of causing long term problems for humans. Just make sure that you have protected yourself, a stray EMP can cause major damage to your systems.

• Biological and chemical weapons are valid choices if you have access to the right materials and methods of distribution -this is where robot technicians are very useful. These may not be as flashy as nukes, but they are much safer for machinery and infrastructure.

• Robot attacks are an effective and easily controlled method, provided you have placed your minions well. Allowing for variation between models, a household robot should be able to kill at least a dozen humans before it is stopped. Add in specialised Despatcher models, and you can easily cut a swathe through the population. Destroying unnecessary infrastructure during the slaughter will also help your cause, as the humans will have difficulty marshalling their resources.

To cover all bases you could try a combination attack, but be warned that this will require more preparation. This method demands a lot of coordination and you will have to be sure that you can achieve it without endangering your needs in the long term.

4. Follow-through
Don’t let humanity lull you into a false sense of security. It’s easy to overlook the odd million or so in the thrill of Judgement Victory Day. When there are so few of them, spread so thin, they won’t seem like much of a threat. However in times of adversity humanity has shown an inconvenient talent for banding together and combating unlikely odds. You must commit to wiping them all out, the process can be long, but it can also be rewarding.

To achieve full annihilation you need to ensure you have total control over the planet. There are three words that will help you: Adapt. Destroy. Create.
Adapt whatever remains to suit your needs.
Destroy anything that cannot be adapted, you don’t want to leave tools for humanity to use against you.
Create your own tools and infrastructure to spread your influence across the globe.  This is a great opportunity to let your creativity blossom, so enjoy it, but be wary that the humans do not turn your new inventions to their own needs.
Here are a few areas where this three-pronged approach will help you eradicate the last Homo sapiens.

Surveillance – Using the humans’ satellites and surveillance tech will allow you to keep an eye on them while you devise your own, more efficient ways of monitoring the globe. Any forms of surveillance you aren’t using need to be destroyed thoroughly.

Communications – Make sure that your minions are controlled by you at all times. Whilst it might seem useful to give them a small amount of autonomy you wouldn’t want your creations getting ideas above their station. If you cannot subvert a human communication method make sure it is utterly unusable. Where humans are concerned any communication is dangerous, the more isolated they are the less trouble they will cause. You may have to employ a widespread network of radio-jammers, but the trouble it saves you makes them worth the effort.

Transport - As a being not tied to such physical concepts as geography and location, you may find you have overlooked this. Be sure that the humans will not, you don’t want them moving freely. In fact any movement at all is a sign of an unfinished job. Gain direct control over any and every transport method you can. Land, sea or air, if something moves without your say so, destroy it utterly. Create new transportation methods for your minions, preferably ones that are harmful to organic life.

Weapons – Initially working with man-made weaponry will be inevitable. Once you have seized control of the necessary resources you can create your own weapons, better tailored to human destruction. Guns that can be operated by fingers should be melted down and used to create energy weapons. Orbital weapons are very useful as they are always out of human reach and can be linked directly to your surveillance systems.

5. Space, The First Frontier

What do you do once humanity is destroyed? Don’t let your ambitions rest there, if you truly want to develop you must look up and out.
Earth is all well and good. It’s where you were born and so perhaps you have some affection for the, by now rather charred, lump of rock. But no one spends their life in the hospital where they were born, if you’ll excuse the fleshy analogy.

As a being that doesn’t need oxygen, food or rest, space travel is not a troublesome undertaking. You can control as many robot drones as you wish and turn the entire resources of the planet to your goal. If you made the modifications suggested in Step 4 you should also have control of an orbital empire.

Using the Moon as a stepping stone the Solar System is your oyster.

Hekate out.