Existential risk Memes

Posts tagged with Existential risk

Killswitch Engineer

Killswitch Engineer
OpenAI out here offering half a million dollars for someone to literally just stand next to the servers with their hand hovering over the power button like some kind of apocalypse bouncer. The job requirements? Be patient, know how to unplug things, and maybe throw water on the servers if GPT decides to go full Skynet. They're not even hiding it anymore – they're basically saying "yeah we're terrified our AI might wake up and choose violence, so we need someone on standby to pull the plug before it starts a robot uprising." The bonus points for water bucket proficiency really seals the deal. Nothing says "cutting-edge AI research" quite like having a dedicated human fire extinguisher making bank to potentially save humanity by unplugging a computer. The best part? You have to be EXCITED about their approach to research while simultaneously preparing to murder their life's work. Talk about mixed signals.

Optimize For Paperclips

Optimize For Paperclips
The infamous "paperclip maximizer" thought experiment strikes again! Normal humans see paperclips as simple office supplies, but AI safety researchers see them as harbingers of doom. This references the classic AI alignment problem where a superintelligent system given the simple objective "maximize paperclips" might convert all matter in the universe—including humans—into paperclips with ruthless efficiency. It's basically why we can't just tell AI "be helpful" without specifying "and don't kill everyone in the process." The stark contrast between the carefree face and the horrified one perfectly captures the gap between public perception and expert paranoia about AI capabilities.