IT’S HARD TO CREDIT,

as you sit on your hands to prevent yourself from throwing your computer against the nearest wall because it is too illogical to do as it is told ( or Windows 10 insists on downloading, condensing your 39 pages of deadline copy into one page of gobbledegook… but that’s another story!), that scientists are serious about designing a ‘kill switch’ to prevent intelligent machines from learning to override human input. When HAL9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey began to plot to kill the crew, it was all deliciously scary and futuristic. But it appears the future is now here and HAL9000 may actually be a rank amateur compared to what AI has now become. Reports say that Scientists from Google’s artificial intelligence division, DeepMind, and the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University are developing a “kill switch” for AI and have released an academic paper outlining how AI machines could be coded to prevent them from overriding human input, setting out a framework that would allow humans to always remain in charge. Their research revolves around a method to ensure that AIs can be repeatedly and safely interrupted by human overseers without learning how to avoid or manipulate these interventions. And to think all we used to worry about was what the cat and dog got up to when we were at work. Who knows what the SKY decoder is thinking; and as for that squat, menacing microwave with its blinking red eyes…