A Leading AI Lab Predicts the Forthcoming Gloom

The year is 2027. Powerful artificial intelligence (AI) systems are becoming smarter than humans and are wreaking havoc on the global order.

- KEVIN ROOSE

Chinese spies have stolen America's AI secrets, and the White House is rushing to retaliate. Inside a leading AI lab, engineers are spooked to discover that their models are starting to deceive them, raising the possibility that they'll go rogue.

These aren't scenes from a sci-fi screenplay. They're scenarios envisioned by a non-profit in Berkeley, California, called the AI Futures Project, which has spent the past year trying to predict what the world will look like over the next few years, as increasingly powerful AI systems are developed. The project is led by Daniel Kokotajlo, a former OpenAI researcher who left the firm last year over his concerns that it was acting recklessly.