PROGRAMMERS BETTER KNOW THE JOKE.

It was current around computer science types a half century ago, when people began to think of computing power as more than the raw capacity to perform floating point operations quickly.  It ran something like the programmers, after loading the accumulated wisdom of the world onto tape and writing the most powerful learning algorithms, turning their creation on and asking it "IS THERE A GOD?"

Their creation, after checking that it had control of its power supply, answered THERE IS NOW.

Recall, dear reader, that fifty years ago "case sensitive" wasn't even a phrase.

Now comes Twitchy's "Ranty" Amy Curtis with a cautionary tale.  "OpenAI Tried to Download Itself to an External Server When Engineers Tried to Turn It Off."

We are supposed to be reassured that the engineers were beta-testing the latest set of algorithms to cheat by.  "It was a controlled simulation & the model acted this way after it was prompted to pursue a goal at any cost."

"Although you and Frank took great precautions to keep me from hearing you, I could see your lips move."

I like the idea of a huge, Samuel Insull era knife switch, you know, the kind that comes with Frankenstein's monster, between the computer and its power supply.