ARTIFICIAL intelligence bots may spark Armageddon like in the Terminator films, scientists fear.
A nightmare scenario where machines trigger global nuclear war could happen by the end of the century, according to Silicon Valley experts.
It mirrors the plot of the sci-fi movies starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, in which computer Skynet becomes “self aware” and almost wipes out humanity using killer robots.
More than a third of tech whizzes quizzed by Stanford University in California agreed “decisions made by AI could cause a catastrophe at least as bad as an all-out nuclear war in this century”.
Nearly three quarters also agreed “AI could soon lead to revolutionary societal change”, and a similar number said AI firms have too much influence.
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But despite their fears, less than half of the 480 experts polled last month for the Artificial Intelligence Index Report thought AI should be regulated.
Pollsters spoke to specialists in natural language processing, an AI branch focusing on giving bots the capacity to understand written and spoken words.
Web security firm Atlas VPN reckons the survey is “one of the most complete perspectives on how AI experts feel”.
It comes after Sam Altman, boss of Microsoft-backed OpenAI, wrote in a blog post: “The risks could be extraordinary.”
British scientist Geoffrey Hinton, 75, considered the “Godfather of AI”, said it was “not inconceivable” the tech could end humanity.
And Tesla and Twitter boss Elon Musk called for an AI “pause” to create “a set of safety protocols”.