Will AI 'kill' all humans? Decoding the conspiracy theories

Ever since former Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon warned of the imminent arrival of an out-of-control AI, the commentariat have started calculating when, and not if, the Deus Ex-Machina will terminate all humans. Most of the commentary has been asinine, but even amid that, a tweet by UK MP Zarah Sultana clearly stood out in its asininity: “AI should be controlled by the workers who build and use it, not by parasitic billionaires.”And even before Marx could wrap his head around that, across the Atlantic Bernie Sanders announced his plans for a bill to ‘ban artificial superintelligence’, with 20 years in prison for violating the rule, which as one social media user put it, sounds like 20 years in prison for murdering Santa Claus.Jokes apart, the proposed bill is essentially a rehash of one that exists for building illegal nuclear weapons that never applies to a ‘guy’ called JEFF.But when two…