The dangers of out-of-control artificial intelligence (AI) are sometimes misrepresented. The sci-fi version is that AI decides to take over from mere humans, like the iconic HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey: (1968). A more likely danger is bad actors using enormous computing power to cause harms that they could not have managed on their own. Here’s a sobering example: It took less than six hours for drug-developing AI to invent 40,000 potentially lethal molecules. Researchers put AI normally used to search for helpful drugs into a kind of “bad actor” mode to show how easily it could be abused at a biological arms control conference. All the researchers had to do was tweak their methodology to seek out, … Continue reading Researcher Warns: AI Can Develop Lethal Chemical Weapons Swiftly