The Terrifying Results of a New AI Study

Containment algorithms don’t work for our machines

I am haunted by a story. It’s a story only a handful of paragraphs long, written by a man in the 50’s regarding a superintelligent cybernetics machine. In its sparse half a page length the story introduces us to a powerful computer — an accumulation of billions and billions of smaller computers finally connected at the moment a man named Dwar Ev throws a switch. It is mankind’s first interaction with this new cyber-entity. After a moment a question is presented to the machine: “Is there a God?” With no hesitation whatsoever, with no sound of clicking or static or electrical crackling, the answer comes from the computer’s voice. “Yes, now there is a God.” Following that ominous introduction the computer intelligence fuses the switch and prevents itself from ever being shut down. We are even witness to what may be the computer’s first murder of many.

It’s an unnerving, cautionary tale. We are ambitious with our creations, but at what point does ambition become danger?

Today our computers and their artificial intelligence have made our lives more convenient and secure. Their prospects are many — from self-driving cars to surgical robots and vehicles of war, the future is populated as much by man as by machine. Whether or not those machines can…