Why do you have to inoculate yourself from it to create havoc? Your analogy of “nuclear war” also has no vaccine.
AI autonomy is a hypothetical existential risk, especially in the short term. There are many non-hypothetical existential risks including actual nuclear proliferation and escalating great power conflicts happening right now.
Again my point being that this is an important discussion but appears overly dramatized, just like there are people screaming doomsday there are also equally qualified people (like Yann LeCun) screaming BS.
But let’s entertain this for a second, can you posit a hypothetical where in the short term a nefarious actor can abuse AI or autonomy results in harm? How does this compare to non-AI alternatives for causing harm?
Short-term AI risk likely comes from a mix of malicious intent and further autonomy that causes harm the perpetrators did not expect. In the longer run, there is a good chance of real autonomy and completely unexpected behaviors from AI.