What could NZ do better as the clouds of AI apocalypse circle the globe?

The useful part

Serious people are putting troubling odds on the machines wiping out the humans in the near future. Across recent days the warnings about the risks of artificial intelligence have reached an unprecedented scale and breadth. A growing parade of people in the AI world are offering estimates on the risk to humanity of a technology approaching "recursive self-improvement".

How it works

• New Zealand needs a bit of work on its own AI policy, reckons one expert.
• Donald Trump, for his part, has denounced a "hoax" and "conspiracy", saying the introduction of stronger regulation would only play into China's hands in the race for technological advantage.
• "The only control or 'guardrails' that AI needs is a STRONG AND SMART (High IQ!) PRESIDENT, and the USA has that, in spades!" reflected the president of the United States.
• For the mere mortals among us trying to process the existential risk, it's worth taking a breath, suggested AI expert Tom Barraclough, speaking to The Spinoff for an episode of At Large with Toby Manhire.

Details worth keeping

The alarm bells are ringing almost everywhere, in the wake of startling derailments such as the Hugging Face hack, in which AI agents went "rogue", with their commitment to completing tasks leading them to defy instructions and leap out of their virtual sandbox. When an AI agent goes off-course, such as in...