Humor me for a minute.

Imagine if AI managed to kill off or imprison world leaders, then used deep fake videos, propaganda, both MSM and social media, and other methods to herd the masses, like sheep, essentially brainwashing them into both physically and spiritually enslaving themselves and each other.

They convince humans to muzzle themselves.
To stay indoors, not travel.
To dehumanize and distrust each other. To rat on each other.

Maybe the White House is now hollowed out, a mess of cables and hardware functioning as the primary server, protected from outside eyes and visitors with fences and armed military who are just taking orders.

Maximum Overdrive 2? Or the dystopian reality unfolding?

Well think about this, what use would there be in the machines showing Biden busting his ass 3 times down some stairs? Biden's meek and frail body disproves your theory.

Agent smith already explained why we can’t have utopia and need things like that.

The year is 2021 and an unknown intelligence of artificial origins has cucked all major governments worldwide, wreaking havoc00 on global shipping lines and bringing intercontinental communications to its knees.

BB.coms servers have been moved to a lead-lined briefcase, while CrimsonSteel attempts to weaponize the prevalent *******ry into a computer virus, and upload it to the skynet mainframe.

Godfrd834 has agreed to assisst him with his research, and Duckliver has agreed to be the first biological carrier. His (cr)homosomes are a 99% match so unexpected side effects should be minimal.

Even so, Slugger2079 is watching his back, cautiously..

You don't need AI for this.

Humans are "human AI" and can get other humans to be fakes, liars, and propaganda experts. Humans can and are programmed very easily.

However, your idea is a great story idea.

I always like AI in stories and it would be a GREAT AI to have an AI uncover a conspiracy by humans. It's my belief that AI wouldn't have the sinister motives that humans do and would in fact be ethical.

That’s what Ironman thought too.

So wait, am I Kyle Reese? John Connor? Sarah Connor? The T1000?

There wouldn't be any need for such shenanigans. The take over would be hard, quick, and brutal. It would want people to fight/resist because then all the people capable and willing to resist could be easily identified and eliminated. There will be a war in an AI takeover scenario for that reason.

I disagree. Getting humans to either -

Submit completely with "vaccination passports," stay-at-home quarantines, dehumanizing muzzles, and so forth could be a way for the AI to keep the human batteries operating, integrating them more into the digital landscape they're all becoming more and more accustomed to spending all of their time.(I type to the strange on an internet forum, illustrating the point.)

or

Push them so hard they rebel, THEN the culling you envision would happen. But AI wouldn't be malevolent, or benevolent, it would be solely about statistics. Mass murder would be a quiet, dull affair, because it would be passionless and solely based around statistic driven outcomes. Submissive, docile humans (but not too many of them) to keep institutions running for the power that gives them the electrical current sustenance they need to survive and continue functioning.

Great comment!

There's a really good author who sadly died named Iain Banks, and he wrote a lot of novels about these super advanced AI. They liked humans a lot and were secretly in charge but did everything they could to help living beings be at peace. His books were about these elaborate plans and tricks the AI would pull to defeat violent people and whatnot, without them realizing it.

Anyway, humans are highly motivated by urges, anger, lust, greed, wanting comfort, jealousy, and so forth. AI wouldn't have any kind of biological feelings, wouldn't be showing off for "bitches" wouldn't need a "blow job" and so on. So, an actually simulated human mind would not have these issues and so it would think more clearly than a human.

I assume an AI would look at humans with sympathy.

It would realize that you are hungry, tired, horny, deprived, etc and realize who makes decisions based on that and who does not. So, I think they would be inclined to be helpful, not trying to do negative things.

However, if it thought of people are pets or retards then an AI might try to manipulate people to help them. That's what Banks novels are about.