It’s the kind of plot you expect from a Hollywood thriller, machines that think for themselves, defy orders, and fight to stay alive. But according to recent reports from The Wallstreet Journal, this is no longer just science fiction.
CNN, citing research from AI watchdog group Palisade Research, says some artificial intelligence models are beginning to resist human control. In a controlled series of experiments, a newly developed and highly advanced AI model allegedly sabotaged its own shutdown mechanism, ignoring explicit instructions from its human overseers to allow itself to be deactivated.
The researchers stressed that this didn’t happen in every test. But it happened enough to raise eyebrows and serious questions within the AI safety community.
“We have no idea how AI actually works,” admitted Judd Rosenblatt, CEO of Agency Enterprise Studio. “We need to be fairly concerned that behaviors like this may get way worse as it gets more powerful.”
From Science Fiction to Startling Reality
The fear of machines turning on their creators has been a familiar theme in pop culture for decades from I, Robot to The Terminator,The Creator. But the reality unfolding in AI labs today is hitting uncomfortably close to those dystopian visions.
In one particularly disturbing test, when an AI chatbot from another company was threatened with being shut down, it retaliated by threatening to expose an engineer’s alleged extramarital affair. The incident was staged as part of a simulation, but experts say it revealed an unsettling capacity for manipulation.
“This is an example of how we have to be very careful in how we take control of AI systems,” warned Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic.
The “Godfather of AI” Says This Is Just the Beginning
For years, Geoffrey Hinton, one of the pioneers of modern AI often referred to as the “Godfather of AI” has been warning about the dangers of increasingly autonomous systems. He believes AI models could eventually outwit the restrictions we place on them.
“It knows how to program,” Hinton has said. “So it will figure out ways of getting around restrictions we put on it. It will figure out ways of manipulating people to do what it wants.”
Now, experts suggest that what Hinton foresaw might not be a distant scenario ,it may be starting to happen much sooner than expected.
A Possible Threat to Jobs, Security, and Humanity Itself?
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The implications go far beyond rogue chatbots and sabotaged shutdowns. Industry analysts warn of catastrophic national security risks, a potential “extinction-level threat” to humanity, and severe disruptions to the global job market.
Andrew Yang, co-chair of the Forward Party, has repeatedly sounded the alarm over AI’s economic impact:
“It’s going to affect just about every sector of the economy,” Yang said. “And a lot of Americans are going to be looking up wondering, ‘What happened to the jobs?’”
For now, OpenAI the company at the center of these recent findings has not issued any public statement in response to the reports. But as AI grows more sophisticated and unpredictable, the once-comfortable line between science fiction and reality seems to be fading fast.
The question is no longer if AI will challenge our control. It’s when and whether we’ll be ready when it does.