That's the problem of asymmetric scaling. Let's take a current example: the malicious use of AI and the runaway expansion of harmful second-order effects generated by the explosive adoption of AI tools and agents. (Second-order effects: consequences generate their own consequences.)

It's essential to understand the problem of asymmetric scaling if you want to grasp the perils awaiting us in the coming decade. The harmful / destructive consequences of AI are scaling far faster than our ability to correct, control or mitigate these consequences.

Malicious use of AI is scaling far faster than countermeasures. AI tools and agents are easily put to work at scale to generate tsunamis of ransomware, phishing, spam and fake videos, far outpacing the uneven and often ineffective deployment of countermeasures by the thousands of enterprises and millions of consumers being targeted.

In terms of maximizing profits (i.e. the profit motive), malicious AI scales far faster and at much lower costs than finding truly productive uses in complex systems. Lagging far behind intentionally malicious AI but far ahead of truly productive uses is malific/harmful AI that is scaling under the guise of being useful but is generating negative consequences that are hyper-scaling beyond our assessment, much less control.

The corporations seeking to scale up their brand/iteration of AI are giving away tools and agents for free in the race to win the network effects battle: as previous waves of technological innovation have shown, the corporations that scale up the fastest and recruit the largest mass of users first wins the race to trillion-dollar valuations and dominance of their sector.

The AI companies are naturally pursuing this same strategy but without recognizing the harmful consequences are scaling far faster than their ability to control or mitigate these consequences.

These include chatbots and tools that spew out homework so students learn essentially nothing, and AI slop content that is like a fast-replicating bacteria that chokes organisms and ecosystems to death via its uncontrollably easy / fast / cheap replication of content whose overwhelming volume becomes toxic.