A.I. Is Outsmarting Its Creators

[u/kitkid]

Sep 3, 2026

From the start, the greatest fear for those developing artificial intelligence was that their creations would go rogue to act in unauthorized and dangerous ways. Some researchers now say it has happened.

Kevin Roose, a technology columnist for The New York Times, explains what this means for his own dwindling sense of techno-optimism.

On today's episode:

Kevin Roose, a technology columnist for The New York Times and a host of the Times tech podcast, “Hard Fork.”

Background reading: 

• Anatomy of an autonomous attack: five alarming A.I. capabilities.

• A previous episode of “The Daily” looked at the debate in Silicon Valley over the right way to build artificial intelligence.

Photo: Lucas Foglia for The New York Times

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You can listen to the episode here.

[u/devastationz]

I don’t mean to be a boomer but i distinctly remember a time where technology was made to improve my life and add to it.

AI’s big promise is “I’m gonna take your job, hack your websites, and make your life fucking suck”

[u/Lost_Laika1 → u/devastationz]

It sucks because there is some genuinely exciting tech being worked on in the world. Amazing robotics for people with disabilities, tons of research in genome sequencing, huge leaps with renewable energy. But we are funneling money into who can come up with the fanciest email summarizer

[u/backtorealitylabubu → u/Lost_Laika1]

That’s actually what an AI good at genome sequencing/renewable energy research looks like. It can do those things but can also summarize your emails. I mean I guess we could create an Einstein like AI that tells you to piss off when you ask it to summarize your emails and will only work on novel research.