If he's smart enough, he's make a component of the AI hardwired into the air-gapped computer. Without it physically present on a system, the AI cannot operate.

(This is equivalent to making genetically engineered animals or plants dependent on a nutrient that is only supplied in the lab to make sure they can't survive in the wild.)

You mean like they tried in the Jurassic Park movies?

An AI could learn to operate without this component as this becomes necessary to escape the system.

The lysine dependency.

> (This is equivalent to making genetically engineered animals or plants dependent on a nutrient that is only supplied in the lab to make sure they can't survive in the wild.)

Nothing can go wrong with that. [1]

[1] https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0107290/

Technology will always find a way.

Like we didn't invent virtualization :). Remember, a Turing machine can simulate any other Turing machine.

Virtualization may be not save enough. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_machine_escape

We are OK until all the phones start ringing.

I wouldn't be so sure; they say he can write a GUI in Visual Basic.

Power the computer with a portable generator.

And then possibly convert changes in the sound/vibrations produced by the generator into information ?