Comment by kragen

> probably destroy almost anyone who survived the initial blast and fallout.

The difference between killing almost everyone, and killing everyone, is similar to the difference between almost getting pregnant and getting pregnant. A hundred thousand years later, a world where almost everyone had been killed would be teeming with humans.

> Can you explain how exactly an AI would develop a novel planet-killing weapon

I already answered that question in my previous comment, and the answer is that I am not going to explain how to develop weapons, but the larger point here is that we already can't explain how exactly AIs do innumerable things we see them doing every day, which is why we're having this conversation in the first place.

> I seriously don’t understand this argument

That is a point that I think everyone can agree on: you do not.