Feature interview: Could AI end up killing us?

One sentence sums up what Nate Soares thinks about artificial intelligence. If anyone builds it, everyone dies. Soares is the President of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute and has worked as an engineer at Microsoft and Google. He says it's a good bet that someone born today has a better chance of dying from something AI does rather than finishing high school. Soares is convinced that once AI exceeds human intelligence, it will not be controllable, and the unintended consequences could be catastrophic. Soares is the co-author of a book that explains why he is firmly on the side of the AI doomsayers. It's called, If Anybody Builds It, Everyone Dies: Why Superhuman AI Would Kill Us All.