"Will AI be the Death of Us?"
Some science fiction scenarios that have to do with computers or machines taking over the world: An apprentice learns a magic trick for making a tool take over all the work of cleaning his master’s workshop, but he can’t figure out how to shut the operation down, and it keeps on multiplying and making what threatens to be an exponentially larger mess, until the master returns and restores order. A super intelligent computer on a spaceship bound for Jupiter starts systematically killing the human occupants, when it decides on its own that the humans are hampering the mission. An ancient race of super-intelligent beings, called the “Krell,” create a planetary supercomputer that realizes every wish of the inhabitants, leading to their self-destruction by “monsters from the Id”. A technological advance shared on the internet leads to a “singularity,” a super-intelligent global computer mind that is self-aware and hostile to human interests. A war ensues between robots and humans. A conglom...