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Most AI researchers say superhuman AI poses a non-trivial risk of our extinction. Plus: Zapping the brain helps to induce hypnosis.

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AI-induced extinction

Many artificial intelligence researchers see the possible future development of superhuman AI as having a non-trivial chance of causing our extinction, but there is also widespread disagreement and uncertainty about such risks. This comes from a survey of 2700 AI researchers who recently published work at six of the top conferences on artificial intelligence. The survey asked the researchers to share their thoughts on possible timelines for future AI technological milestones, as well as the good or bad societal consequences of those achievements. Almost 58 per cent said they considered there is a 5 per cent chance of human extinction or other extremely bad AI-related outcomes. Read more

Hypnosis made easier

Sending electrical pulses to a specific part of the brain makes people more susceptible to hypnosis. Forty people with the chronic pain condition fibromyalgia received transcranial magnetic stimulation to their dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, while an additional 40 people with the same condition had a sham treatment. After just one 1.5-minute session, those who received the electrical brain stimulation had a boost in their hypnosis susceptibility for up to an hour, while the other group saw no change. Hypnotherapy has shown some promise for treating conditions such as chronic pain, but the researchers didn’t measure if the participants’ fibromyalgia symptoms improved. Read more

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We know our sun will shine for another 6 billion years before its nuclear fuel runs out. And the expanding universe will continue, perhaps forever, destined to become ever colder, ever emptier. But despite our awareness of the aeons to come, our planning horizons have shrunk because our lives are changing so fast, writes astronomer royal Martin Rees. The political focus is on the urgent and immediate. Perhaps our remote descendants will have a much-enhanced lifespan. They might even become near-immortal. Would they, like us, “spend and save” time as a scarce resource? Or would an overabundance lead to ennui? Only time itself can tell. Read more

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Walter de Heer at Georgia Tech in Atlanta on the electrical properties of silicon chips compared with a graphene semiconductor.

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Alexandra Thompson

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