Then there's things like this ...
... It's one of humanity's scariest what-ifs " that the technology we develop to make our lives better develops a will of its own.
Early reactions to a September preprint describing AI behavior have already speculated that the technology is exhibiting a survival drive. But, while it's true that several large language models (LLMs) have been observed actively resisting commands to shut down, the reason isn't 'will'.
Instead, a team of engineers at Palisade Research proposed that the mechanism is more likely to be a drive to complete an assigned task -- even when the LLM is explicitly told to allow itself to be shut down. And that might be even more troubling than a survival drive, because no one knows how to stop the systems.
"These things are not programmed ... no one in the world knows how these systems work," physicist Petr Lebedev, a spokesperson for Palisade Research, told ScienceAlert. "There isn't a single line of code we can change that would directly change behavior."
The researchers, Jeremy Schlatter, Benjamin Weinstein-Raun, and Jeffrey Ladish, undertook the project to test what should be a fundamental safety feature of all AI systems: the ability to be interrupted.
This is exactly what it sounds like.
A human operator's command to an AI should not be ignored by the AI, for any reason, even if it interrupts a previously assigned task.
A system that cannot be interrupted isn't just unreliable, it's potentially dangerous.
It means if the AI is performing actions that cause harm -- even unintentionally -- we cannot trust that we can stop it. ...
*** "Construction Can't Continue": South Texas Builders Say ICE Arrests Have Upended Industry ***
"ICE raids and the specter of more to come have struck fear in construction workers, causing many to stay home. ICE storm troopers have arrested more than 9,100 people in South Texas-- nearly one-fifth of all such arrests in the entire state since Dummkopf Trumpf seized power on 20 Jan 2025.
Without enough workers, construction has slowed, sending a ripple effect throughout the economy. Economists suggest that this will drive housing costs up-- even as Texas officials focus on bringing such costs down."
Link: www.texastribune.org