Crossposted from AI Impacts.

Epistemic status: I am not a historian, nor have I investigated these case studies in detail. I admit I am still uncertain about how the conquistadors were able to colonize so much of the world so quickly. I think my ignorance is excusable because this is just a blog post; I welcome corrections from people who know more. If it generates sufficient interest I might do a deeper investigation. Even if I’m right, this is just one set of historical case-studies; it doesn’t prove anything about AI, even if it is suggestive. Finally, in describing these conquistadors as “successful,” I simply mean that they achieved their goals, not that what they achieved was good.

Summary

In the span of a few years, some minor European explorers (later known as the conquistadors) encountered, conquered, and enslaved several huge regions of the world. That they were able to do this is surprising; their technological advantage was not huge. (This was before the scientific and industrial revolutions.) From these cases, I think we learn that it is occasionally possible for a small force to quickly conquer large parts of the world, despite:

Having only a minuscule fraction of the world's resources and power
Having technology + diplomatic and strategic cunning that is better but not that much better
Having very little data about the world when the conquest begins
Being disunited

Which all suggests that it isn’t as implausible that a small AI takes over the world in mildly favorable circumstances as is sometimes thought.

EDIT: In light of good pushback from people (e.g. Lucy.ea8 and e.g. Matthew Barnett) about the importance of disease, I think one should probably add a caveat to the above: "In times of chaos & disruption, at least."

NEW EDIT: After reading three giant history books on the subject, I take back my previous edit. My original claims were correct.

Three shocking true stories

I highly recommend you read the wiki pages yourself; otherwise, here are my summaries:

Cortés: [wiki] [wiki]

April 1519: Hernán Cortés lands in Yucatan with ~500 men, 13 horses, and a few cannons. He destroys his ships so his men won't be able to retreat. His goal is to conquer the Aztec empire of several million people.
He makes his way towards the imperial capital, Tenochtitlán. Along the way he encounters various local groups, fighting some and allying with some. He is constantly

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