[ericthered]

After a certain size, a piece of software becomes hard to move and hard to hide. How big this is depends on how fast your internet connection is, and how good your processing power is.

In THS, storage technology and processing power stopped being exponential 70 years ago. AI's take up large amounts of processing power and data: Its considered cutting edge tech to fit an SAI into a cybershell the size of a cat. You need a lot of power to run the AI, and you're not going to find that outside of proper servers. Sure, you could probably run distributed, but then you're accepted a slowing thinking rate, and that is likely to cost you in the long run. So I'm going to guess that AI's are well past the "big enough to be inconvenient to slip in" point.

By way of comparison, its easy for humans to eradicate large animals like wolves, bears, and buffalo. Deer and coyotes are harder, but doable. Keeping mice out is a constant battle, with insects you settle for keeping them out of your food rather than out of your space, and good luck keeping microbes away.

big SAI's are going to be easy to track and eliminate if they don't have rights. Or programs of similar sizes. As programs get smaller and simpler, they get harder to find and eliminate.

Now, big blocks of weblife with their own agenda is a different situation. That's not a pack of wolves, that's a criminal organization. And I would suggest it would act like one and be fought like one.