Before You Build That AI Fallout Bunker…

 

I’ve been seeing quite a few articles on the topic of how Artificial Intelligence (AI) is becoming dangerous to we humans, and something must be done, or else we’re likely looking at a dystopian future.

Yeah, I’m not buying it. And GTIM Nation shouldn’t, either. Here’s why.

Consider first of all that a computer that doesn’t (or can’t) run software is useless, the proverbial “boat anchor.” The whole reason that the things exist is to run software. True, many (too many?) modern appliances have microprocessors in them, and perform things that would be considered impossible a mere fifty years ago, but that’s a mixed blessing. I’m glad my refrigerator’s ice maker knows to stop making ice when the dispenser container is full. I’d be happier still if it would stop trying to make ice when a big clump forms in the device that pushes the cubes into said dispenser container, rather than creating a mass of ice capable of sinking ocean liners, necessitating a long and highly irksome defrost cycle and resetting process.

Let’s now turn our attention to the only other possible culprit in this whole AI-will-destroy-our-lives scenario, the actual software. What is software? It’s a series of instructions that the machine obeys.

That’s it.

What software is not is a nascent brain-like entity on the brink of self-awareness and, yes, intelligence. Let’s take a look at a couple of news stories that would seem to challenge my definition. The first comes out of China, and … well, I’ll just let Debapriya Bhattacharya’s   words speak for themselves:

BEIJING, CHINA: A humanoid robot was caught on CCTV camera "coming to life" and attacking a person in front of it, who is assumed to be its handler, in a factory in China, the Daily Mail reported on Monday, May 5.[i]

I do not know whom Debapriva was quoting with the phrase “coming to life,” but I can assure everyone that this industrial robot absolutely did not come to life. It is literally as dead as a door nail, unless one is using the term “live” in the electrician’s sense when referring to an energized circuit. It is simply a computer that processes instructions, in this case instructions on when to activate certain servos that allows it to manipulate whatever it’s supposed to be manipulating. Rather than “coming to life,” it was simply activated, and began executing its instructions when it should not have been doing so. It wasn’t attacking the workers in front of it – it was simply, again, activating servos in its mechanical – I don’t want to say “arms,” because I’m sick to death of these things being anthropomorphized – hinged extensions. If those two people weren’t standing there at the moment the thing was activated, there would have been no “attack.” It would have been a mechanical device thrashing about. It’s analogous to a trip I took with my wife and sons to Padre Island, Texas, in my 1986 Cadillac DeVille. While still a couple of hundred miles out, the car started acting odd. It would rev at high levels when I first started it, and the throttle response felt off. I made it the rest of the way to Corpus Christi and, after checking the fam into the beach hotel, took it to a Pep Boys in town. (Shout out to Pep Boys in Corpus Christi, Texas – you guys rock!) They quickly diagnosed that the problems were being caused by a faulty throttle positioning sensor – when the car was idling, the TPS was telling the car’s computer that it was about to stall. The computer did what its programming told it to do, namely, push more fuel into the intake manifold, but even this response was being mis-reported back to the computer via the faulty sensor, leading to more erratic motor behavior. They simply switched out the TPS, and sent me on my way. Notably, I did not take the opportunity of this event to assert that the car’s computer had attained self-awareness, and was about to take revenge on me for not strictly observing oil change intervals. It didn’t “come to life,” or “attack” anything. It was simply executing its programming. Now, if that programming included instructions to “ram yourself into the nearest tree” upon receiving an anomalous signal from the TPS, that’s still not the car attaining sentience. That would be the fault of whatever programmer added such an idiotic instruction.

Next, from CIO, we have an episode from April 2016:

Microsoft released Tay, an AI chatbot, on the social media platform, and the company described it as an experiment in conversational understanding. (snip) Within 16 hours, the chatbot posted more than 95,000 tweets, and those tweets rapidly turned overtly racist, misogynist, and anti-Semitic. Microsoft quickly suspended the service for adjustments and ultimately pulled the plug.[ii]

As touchy as this episode is, I’d like to make an analogy to a person who is travelling via starship to a planet where the advanced inhabitant’s language consists of color-coded graphics. Upon arriving, these inhabitants hand our intrepid explorer what we would call a Rubik’s Cube and, by motioning, indicate that they wish it to be manipulated. Wanting to please these advanced inhabitants, the explorer makes several changes to the Rubik’s Cube, and hands it back to them, whereupon they react with extreme umbrage. Your specific Rubik’s Cube “communication,” it seems, has touched upon one of their taboos, and they now hate you and the entire civilization you represent. How is this analogous? I can guarantee that Tay AI did not “understand” the context of the words and phrases it assembled when asked for a response, much like our interstellar explorer. It merely scans available text associated with the original ask, and assembles a response based on patterns it encounters during such searches. If its programmer(s) had included an error trap to ensure that it never replies with a text construction that engages in (or even references) racism or anti-Semitism, this, like the “awakened” Chinese industrial robot’s “attack,” never would have happened.

Now, to the crowd insisting that “something” must be done with respect to AI, let me offer this suggestion: if you replace the term “AI” with “bad programming,” I’m all on board. Poor programming, especially those lists of machine instructions that allow for open-ended responses to (perhaps invalid) parameter inputs, is extremely dangerous.

But it’s not AI. It’s deficient programming.

[i] Retrieved from https://news.meaww.com/terrifying-video-of-humanoid-robot-waking-up-and-attacking-its-handler-goes-viral on July 8, 2025, 19:48 MDT.

[ii] Retrieved from https://www.cio.com/article/190888/5-famous-analytics-and-ai-disasters.html on July 10, 2025, 19:26 MDT.