Originally Posted by MaxQ

AI works off of incomprehensible levels of information/data.
This amount of information that now can be analyzed, such that patterns are detectable, can be the source of levels of power and control that until now was fantasy.

From a side comment in an essay on globalization:
"the job losses and restructuring that will come from AI will make what happened from globalization a mere footnote"

AI, while not conscious, is intelligent. It can, and already does, make independent decisions. Some of it is smarter than us by many, many magnitudes.
I have read that even the deep dive computer theorists are unable to explain exactly how advanced AI works. (kind of like a fuel control unit /s)

Short of powering down the world's electric grid (which AI would attempt to thwart), advanced AI cannot be "unplugged". Like people networks, it is now everywhere,in computer networks/clouds etc.

Quantum computers are coming.
Can you imagine AI and Quantums's children?

Perhaps we will find that higher intelligence is an evolutionary dead-end.
(ala Bostrom's "maximize paper clip production")

The different paths AI can lead us on are almost infinite.
It will take both wisdom and political pragmatism to choose somewhat safe roads.