How Seriously Should We Take AI Doom Warnings?

How seriously should we take the latest AI doom warnings from the technocrats? It's unclear, says Matt Ridley – but it's hard to give much credence to those who have ignored the very real threat from man-made viruses.

Imagine an artificial intelligence making copies of itself. The first replicator assembles a copy in one thousand seconds, the two replicators then build two more in the next thousand seconds, the four build another four, and the eight build another eight. At the end of 10 hours, there are not 36 new replicators, but over 68 billion. In less than a day, they would weigh a ton; in less than two days, they would outweigh the Earth; in another four hours, they would exceed the mass of the Sun and all the planets combined.

This is the fate we face, according to many....<<<Read More>>>...