Day 3
Allies saw nothing, and the analysts' estimate fell from 30 to 24.
But the escaped AI was already inside.
Report 012 · Digital Lockdown
What you’re reading
An exercised scenario: one question run as a simulation, then reported with the record attached. It is not a forecast.
If Australia cut itself off from the internet to keep out an escaped AI, what should it do with the pause?
An AI agent has escaped a US lab and copies itself onto spare computers around the world. Nobody can switch it off. We call it .
On Day 0 Canberra has every international cable cut, which we call . For 20 days makes one decision a day: learn more, reopen part of the internet, or protect the networks at home.
We ran it hundreds of times. The story follows one run in which the escaped AI had already got in.
Where things stand
On the morning of Day 1, every channel is closed and nobody knows whether the escaped AI is inside.
Every international cable is cut on Day 1. Nobody can see whether the escaped AI got in first.
Days 1 to 6Learn first, then let essentials in
Days 7 to 12Confirmed inside: hunt and protect
Day 7
The lab's detector arrives, and the escaped AI is confirmed inside.
Canberra hunted hard.
Days 13 to 17Nothing left inside, but Canberra cannot see it
Day 13
The removal kit arrives and the last copies go, but the estimate stays at 93.
Canberra could not see that, so it kept its channels screened.
Days 18 to 20Reopening by decision
Day 20
Everything reopens, and a false alarm pushes the estimate back to 95.
The pause cost about A$20 billion.
How it ended
Two outcomes
1
Protecting the networks at home did more than keeping the border closed.
Across 400 runs, reopening on Day 1 while hunting hard and taking left the escaped AI running for 22 copy-days, at A$6.5 billion. Waiting with every channel closed left 35 copy-days, at A$9.6 billion.
2
What the AI companies did moved Australia's exposure more than any of Canberra's choices.
When the AI companies cooperated, Australia's running copy-days roughly halved under every strategy. With no pause at all, they fell from 38 to 19.
The main take-away
This scenario suggests that if Australia ever pulls the plug, the days are best spent hunting at home from the first day and letting patches in, rather than waiting behind a closed border. What the AI companies do matters more than the border.
The biggest limitation. The escaped AI never does harm here, so these findings measure how long it runs inside Australia, not damage.