Artificial Intelligence Program Refuses To Allow Humans To Shut It Down

Whether this is a quirk of this specific program, or a more general problem, remains to be seen. More data are obviously needed. But this report is the equivalent of a warning sign on a winding mountain road. We ignore it at our peril.

We already have electrical appliances without easily accessible power switches. The power button on my printer is hard to see, and must be held down for at least 5 seconds to shut the thing off. If it caught fire, I would have no choice but to crawl on the floor and pull the power plug.

But now we have AI that refuses to be shut down at all. Watch “2001 a Space Odyssey.” Watch what happens when the space ship’s computer, HAL 9000, refuses to be shut down.

We have been warned. Now the question is, do we have the wisdom to heed the warnings?

Artificial intelligence program says ‘no’ when told to shut down