Civilization is at a crossroads, or will be soon. Democratization of AI can be good up to a point, but existential threats can also be real, and democratization of existential threats is not a survivable policy.

It's actually the opposite. Democratization of intelligence is the only way to stop existential threats and render them useless.

Right now, and likely forever, because biological threats can be sanctioned at a supply-chain level, the risk of AI is all digital. Fraud, phishing scams, spam, hacks, etc.

The only way we harden the worlds infrastructure to the point that it can withstand attack from bad AI is if we have an abundance of access to frontier intelligence to develop countermeasures.

Otherwise, bad actors will develop these capabilities behind closed doors and use them to hold the world hostage and cause irreparable harm. There's no putting the genie back in the bottle. Good and open-access AI and the people using it are the digital immune system.

If there's an asymmetry where bleeding edge is gated off to only a small group, and allowed to gain exponential power over the immune systems defense grid, the slightest infection will lead to death of the host.