title: Bronchus

text: The right main bronchus is wider, shorter, and more vertical than the left main bronchus, its mean length is 1.09 cm. It enters the root of the right lung at approximately the fifth thoracic vertebra. The right main bronchus subdivides into three secondary bronchi (also known as lobar bronchi), which deliver oxygen to the three lobes of the right lung—the superior, middle and inferior lobe. The azygos vein arches over it from behind; and the right pulmonary artery lies at first below and then in front of it. About 2 cm from its commencement it gives off a branch to the superior lobe of the right lung, which is also called the eparterial bronchus. "Eparterial" refers to its position above the right pulmonary artery. The right bronchus now passes below the artery, and is known as the "hyparterial" branch which divides into the two lobar bronchi to the middle and lower lobes.


title: Bronchus

text: The left main bronchus is smaller in caliber but longer than the right, being 5 cm long. It enters the root of the left lung opposite the sixth thoracic vertebra. It passes beneath the aortic arch, crosses in front of the esophagus, the thoracic duct, and the descending aorta, and has the left pulmonary artery lying at first above, and then in front of it. The left bronchus has no eparterial branch, and therefore it has been supposed by some that there is no upper lobe to the left lung, but that the so-called upper lobe corresponds to the middle lobe of the right lung. The left main bronchus divides into two secondary bronchi or lobar bronchi, to deliver air to the two lobes of the left lung—the superior and the inferior lobe.


title: Bronchus

text: The secondary bronchi divide further into tertiary bronchi, (also known as segmental bronchi), each of which supplies a bronchopulmonary segment. A bronchopulmonary segment is a division of a lung separated from the rest of the lung by a septum of connective tissue. This property allows a bronchopulmonary segment to be surgically removed without affecting other segments. Initially, there are ten segments in each lung, but during development with the left lung having just two lobes, two pairs of segments fuse to give eight, four for each lobe. The tertiary bronchi divide further in another three branchings known as 4th order, 5th order and 6th order segmental bronchi which are also referred to as subsegmental bronchi. These branch into many smaller bronchioles which divide into terminal bronchioles, each of which then gives rise to several respiratory bronchioles, which go on to divide into two to eleven alveolar ducts. There are five or six alveolar sacs associated with each alveolar duct. The alveolus is the basic anatomical unit of gas exchange in the lung.


title: Bronchus

text: The main bronchi have relatively large lumens that are lined by respiratory epithelium. This cellular lining has cilia departing towards the mouth which removes dust and other small particles. There is a smooth muscle layer below the epithelium arranged as two ribbons of muscle that spiral in opposite directions. This smooth muscle layer contains seromucous glands, which secrete mucus, in its wall. Hyaline cartilage is present in the bronchi, surrounding the smooth muscle layer. In the main bronchi, the cartilage forms C-shaped rings like those in the trachea, while in the smaller bronchi, hyaline cartilage is present in irregularly arranged crescent-shaped plates and islands. These plates give structural support to the bronchi and keep the airway open.


title: Bronchus

text: The cartilage and mucous membrane of the main bronchus (primary bronchi) are similar to those in the trachea. They are lined with respiratory epithelium, which is classified as ciliated pseudostratified columnar epithelium. The epithelium in the main bronchi contains goblet cells, which are glandular, modified simple columnar epithelial cells that produce mucins, the main component of mucus. Mucus plays an important role in keeping the airways clear in the mucociliary clearance process.


title: Bronchus

text: As branching continues through the bronchial tree, the amount of hyaline cartilage in the walls decreases until it is absent in the bronchioles. As the cartilage decreases, the amount of smooth muscle increases. The mucous membrane also undergoes a transition from ciliated pseudostratified columnar epithelium, to simple ciliated cuboidal epithelium, to simple squamous epithelium in the alveolar ducts and alveoli


title: Bronchus

text: In 0.1 to 5% of people there is a right superior lobe bronchus arising from the main stem bronchus prior to the carina. This is known as a tracheal bronchus, and seen as an anatomical variation. It can have multiple variations and, although usually asymptomatic, it can be the root cause of pulmonary disease such as a recurrent infection. In such cases resection is often curative.


title: Bronchus

text: The cardiac bronchus has a prevalence of ≈0.3% and presents as an accessory bronchus arising from the bronchus intermedius between the upper lobar bronchus and the origin of the middle and lower lobar bronchi of the right main bronchus.


title: Bronchus

text: An accessory cardiac bronchus is usually an asymptomatic condition but may be associated with persistent infection or hemoptysis. In about half of observed cases the cardiac bronchus presents as a short dead-ending bronchial stump, in the remainder the bronchus may exhibit branching and associated aerated lung parenchyma.


title: Bronchus

text: The bronchi function to carry air that is breathed in through to the functional tissues of the lungs, called alveoli. Exchange of gases between the air in the lungs and the blood in the capillaries occurs across the walls of the alveolar ducts and alveoli. The alveolar ducts and alveoli consist primarily of simple squamous epithelium, which permits rapid diffusion of oxygen and carbon dioxide.


title: Bronchus

text: Bronchial wall thickening, as can be seen on CT scan, generally (but not always) implies inflammation of the bronchi (bronchitis). Normally, the ratio of the bronchial wall thickness and the bronchial diameter is between 0.17 and 0.23.


title: Bronchus

text: Bronchitis is defined as inflammation of the bronchi, which can either be acute or chronic. Acute bronchitis is usually caused by viral or bacterial infections. Many sufferers of chronic bronchitis also suffer from chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), and this is usually associated with smoking or long-term exposure to irritants.


title: Bronchus

text: The left main bronchus departs from the trachea at a greater angle than that of the right main bronchus. The right bronchus is also wider than the left and these differences predispose the right lung to aspirational problems. If food, liquids, or foreign bodies are aspirated, they will tend to lodge in the right main bronchus. Bacterial pneumonia and aspiration pneumonia may result.


title: Bronchus

text: If a tracheal tube used for intubation is inserted too far, it will usually lodge in the right bronchus, allowing ventilation only of the right lung.


title: Bronchus

text: Asthma is marked by hyperresponsiveness of the bronchi with an inflammatory component, often in response to allergens.


title: Bronchus

text: In asthma, the constriction of the bronchi can result in difficulty in breathing giving shortness of breath; this can lead to a lack of oxygen reaching the body for cellular processes. In this case, an inhaler can be used to rectify the problem. The inhaler administers a bronchodilator, which serves to soothe the constricted bronchi and to re-expand the airways. This effect occurs quite quickly.


title: Bronchus

text: Bronchial atresia is a rare congenital disorder that can have a varied appearance. A bronchial atresia is a defect in the development of the bronchi, affecting one or more bronchi – usually segmental bronchi and sometimes lobar. The defect takes the form of a blind-ended bronchus. The surrounding tissue secretes mucus normally but builds up and becomes distended. This can lead to regional emphysema.


title: Bronchus

text: The collected mucus may form a mucoid impaction or a bronchocele, or both. A pectus excavatum may accompany a bronchial atresia.


title: William F. Garrison

text: William F. "Bill" Garrison (born 27 June 1944) is a retired major general of the United States Army who commanded United States forces during Operation Gothic Serpent, the military operation launched in 1993 to capture Somali warlord Mohamed Farrah Aidid.


title: William F. Garrison

text: Garrison was born in Mineral Wells, Texas, on 27 June 1944. He earned his Bachelor of Business Administration degree from University of Texas–Pan American. Garrison enlisted in the United States Army in 1966.


title: William F. Garrison

text: During the Vietnam War, Garrison participated in the Phoenix Program. According to Mark Bowden, Garrison "had served two tours in Vietnam, part of it helping to run the infamously brutal Phoenix Program, which ferreted out and killed Viet Cong village leaders."


title: William F. Garrison

text: From 1981 to 1983, Garrison commanded the 1st Battalion, 505th Infantry, 82d Airborne Division, at Fort Bragg. In 1982 he led an 808-man task force, TF 1/505, on the first six-month Sinai mission as part of the Multinational Force and Observers, serving as a buffer between Israel and Egypt, and was present when Israel handed over the Sinai to Egypt. Garrison spent most of his career in special operations units, including the Intelligence Support Activity as the commander of its operations squadron and the 1st Special Forces Operational Detachment-Delta (also known as Delta Force) from 1985 to 1989. His last command was the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center.


title: William F. Garrison

text: Garrison commanded Task Force Ranger during Operation Gothic Serpent in Somalia, a military operation conducted in Mogadishu, Somalia, by an American-led coalition during the Somali Civil War in 1993. The primary objective of the operation was to capture Somali military officer Mohamed Farrah Aidid, who was wanted by the Unified Task Force after his attacks against United Nations troops in 1992. The operation took place from August to October 1993 and was supervised by the United States' Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC).


title: William F. Garrison

text: The mission ultimately culminated in what became known as the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu. Garrison took full responsibility for the tactical setbacks experienced in Operation Gothic Serpent, which effectively ended his military career.


title: William F. Garrison

text: Mark Bowden, the author of "Black Hawk Down: A Story of Modern War", described Garrison as a military ascetic. According to Bowden's description Garrison tirelessly worked to serve his country and would do anything for his soldiers. Some of Garrison's subordinates have also spoken publicly about their former commander. Staff Sergeant Dan Schilling, an Air Force Combat Controller who took part in Operation Gothic Serpent, shared his feelings about Garrison in the book:


title: William F. Garrison

text: By September 1996, Garrison had retired at the rank of major general and settled into a ranch near the community of Hico, Texas.


title: Harshaali Malhotra

text: Harshaali Malhotra (born 3 June 2008) is an Indian actress and model who appears in Hindi-language films and television series.


title: Harshaali Malhotra

text: Malhotra made her film debut with a leading role in Kabir Khan's 2015 drama film "Bajrangi Bhaijaan", alongside Salman Khan, Kareena Kapoor and Nawazuddin Siddiqui. She played the role of Shahida also known as 'Munni', a Pakistani Muslim girl. Her performance as a mute girl was critically praised and earned her the Filmfare Award for Best Female Debut nomination, making her the youngest person to be nominated in the category and won the Screen Award for Best Child Artist among several other awards and nominations. She also received the Bharat Ratna Dr. Ambedkar Award in 2022 for her performance in "Bajrangi Bhaijaan".


title: Convergent series

text: In mathematics, a series is the sum of the terms of an infinite sequence of numbers. More precisely, an infinite sequence formula_1 defines a series that is denoted


title: Convergent series

text: A series is convergent (or converges) if the sequence formula_4 of its partial sums tends to a limit; that means that, when adding one formula_5 after the other "in the order given by the indices", one gets partial sums that become closer and closer to a given number. More precisely, a series converges, if there exists a number formula_6 such that for every arbitrarily small positive number formula_7, there is a (sufficiently large) integer formula_8 such that for all formula_9,


title: Convergent series

text: If the series is convergent, the (necessarily unique) number formula_6 is called the "sum of the series".


title: Convergent series

text: is used for the series, and, if it is convergent, to its sum. This convention is similar to that which is used for addition: denotes the "operation of adding and " as well as the result of this "addition", which is called the "sum" of and .


title: Convergent series

text: Comparison test. The terms of the sequence formula_24 are compared to those of another sequence formula_25. If,


title: Convergent series

text: Ratio test. Assume that for all "n", formula_32 is not zero. Suppose that there exists formula_33 such that


title: Convergent series

text: If "r" < 1, then the series is absolutely convergent. If then the series diverges. If the ratio test is inconclusive, and the series may converge or diverge.


title: Convergent series

text: Root test or "n"th root test. Suppose that the terms of the sequence in question are non-negative. Define "r" as follows:


title: Convergent series

text: If "r" < 1, then the series converges. If then the series diverges. If the root test is inconclusive, and the series may converge or diverge.


title: Convergent series

text: The ratio test and the root test are both based on comparison with a geometric series, and as such they work in similar situations. In fact, if the ratio test works (meaning that the limit exists and is not equal to 1) then so does the root test; the converse, however, is not true. The root test is therefore more generally applicable, but as a practical matter the limit is often difficult to compute for commonly seen types of series.


title: Convergent series

text: Integral test. The series can be compared to an integral to establish convergence or divergence. Let formula_36 be a positive and monotonically decreasing function. If


title: Convergent series

text: Limit comparison test. If formula_38, and the limit formula_39 exists and is not zero, then formula_40 converges if and only if formula_27 converges.


title: Convergent series

text: Alternating series test. Also known as the "Leibniz criterion", the alternating series test states that for an alternating series of the form formula_42, if formula_24 is monotonically decreasing, and has a limit of 0 at infinity, then the series converges.


title: Convergent series

text: If the series formula_50 converges, then the series formula_40 is absolutely convergent. The Maclaurin series of the exponential function is absolutely convergent for every complex value of the variable.


title: Convergent series

text: If the series formula_40 converges but the series formula_50 diverges, then the series formula_40 is conditionally convergent. The Maclaurin series of the logarithm function formula_57 is conditionally convergent for .


title: Convergent series

text: The Riemann series theorem states that if a series converges conditionally, it is possible to rearrange the terms of the series in such a way that the series converges to any value, or even diverges.


title: Convergent series

text: There is an analogue of the comparison test for infinite series of functions called the Weierstrass M-test.


title: Convergent series

text: This means that for every formula_63 there is a positive integer formula_8 such that for all formula_65 we have


title: Alone Again (Naturally)

text: "Alone Again (Naturally)" is a song by Irish singer-songwriter Gilbert O'Sullivan. It was recorded in 1972 at the same time as his album "Back to Front" and was a worldwide hit.


title: Alone Again (Naturally)

text: The single spent six non-consecutive weeks at number one on "Billboard's" Hot 100 between late July and early September 1972 in America. It ranked number two in the year-end chart (behind Roberta Flack's "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face") and sold more than two million copies.


title: Alone Again (Naturally)

text: The song was involved in a 1991 court case which held that sampling of music can constitute copyright infringement.


title: Alone Again (Naturally)

text: "Alone Again (Naturally)" is a melancholy, introspective ballad. In the first verse, the singer contemplates suicide after having been left "in the lurch at a church"; in the second, he wonders if there is a God; finally, he laments the death of his parents. O'Sullivan has said the song is not autobiographical: for example, his mother was alive during its composition, and he was not close to his father, who was cruel to his mother and died when the singer was 11 years old.


title: Alone Again (Naturally)

text: The song received extensive radio airplay in the months after its release, and was critically praised. O'Sullivan commented that “Neil Diamond covered 'Alone Again (Naturally)' and said he couldn't believe a 21-year-old wrote it, but for me it was just one song I had written.” Neil Sedaka stating when he covered the song in 2020 that he wished that he himself had written the song, because its complexity was more typical of someone much older than 21.


title: Alone Again (Naturally)

text: Between late July and early September 1972 in America the single spent six non-consecutive weeks at number one on "Billboard's" Hot 100 – interrupted by Three Dog Night's "Black and White" – and ranked no. 2 in the year-end chart (behind Roberta Flack's "The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face"). Both O'Sullivan's and Flack's singles spent six weeks at number one, 11 weeks in the Top Ten, 15 weeks in the Top 40 and 18 weeks on the Hot 100. In a decade-end survey as counted down on syndicated radio show Casey Kasem's American Top 40, using "Billboard" statistics, "Alone Again (Naturally)" ranked five, with Debby Boone's "You Light Up My Life" at number one. It also spent six weeks at number one on "Billboard"'s Easy Listening chart. In April 1972 "Alone Again" peaked at no. 3 on the UK singles chart.


title: Alone Again (Naturally)

text: Grand Upright Music, Ltd v. Warner Bros. Records Inc. was a copyright case heard in 1991 by the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. The case pitted O'Sullivan against Biz Markie after the rapper sampled O'Sullivan's song "Alone Again (Naturally)". The court ruled that sampling without permission can be copyright infringement. The judgment changed the hip hop music industry, requiring that music sampling be preapproved by the original copyright owners to avoid a lawsuit.


title: Mera (DC Extended Universe)

text: Y'Mera Xebella Challa, also known simply as Mera, is a fictional character in the DC Extended Universe. She is based on the character of the same name commonly associated with Aquaman, and is portrayed by Amber Heard. Making her debut in the theatrical release of "Justice League", Mera is a princess from the underwater kingdom of Xebel and demonstrates aquatic superpowers. She serves as Arthur Curry / Aquaman's main love interest and a foil to his character, much like the comics. The first portrayal of Mera in live-action cinema, Heard's performance has mostly received mixed reviews from critics and fans alike.


title: Mera (DC Extended Universe)

text: Mera, the traditional love interest of Aquaman, first appeared in comics in 1963 and is typically portrayed as the queen of the seas alongside Aquaman as king. Aquaman and Mera were notably married in the first superhero wedding in comic book history, in "Aquaman" #18 (Dec 1964). Later comics writers have given more emphasis on Mera's own aquatic superpowers and abilities as a warrior in her own right, with certain storylines adding her to the ranks of the Justice League alongside Aquaman or in his place.


title: Mera (DC Extended Universe)

text: After years of attempting to adapt Aquaman to film, American actress Amber Heard was first cast as Mera for the DC Extended Universe films "Justice League" and "Aquaman" in 2016, after Jason Momoa had been cast as Arthur Curry / Aquaman. This marked Heard's first major role in a studio film. She has stated that one of the reasons attracting her to the part was Mera being "a strong, independent, self-possessed superhero in her own right".


title: Mera (DC Extended Universe)

text: For the films, Heard wore a red wig over her natural hair, with the hue of red in "Aquaman" being much more vibrant than in either version of "Justice League" due to different color saturations used by the films. Fans noted that the deeper red in "Aquaman" was more faithful to the comics, though film colorist Mark Griffith admitted that Mera's hair color was "too vibrant" during certain scenes in the film. Thus, he worked to desaturate the color in those scenes. Several special effects studios, such as Industrial Light & Magic (ILM), Method Studios, Scanline VFX, Digital Domain and others were employed to render Mera's underwater and fighting scenes and hair movement in water, with the effects visible in scenes such as Orm and Arthur's first duel, Arthur and Mera's fight against Black Manta, and Arthur and Mera's visit to the Trench. In addition, Heard and other actors and stunt doubles were attached to harnesses during filming to simulate fighting under-water.


title: Mera (DC Extended Universe)

text: In "Zack Snyder's Justice League", the director's cut of the 2017 theatrical release of "Justice League", Mera noticeably speaks with a British accent whereas in the theatrical cut and "Aquaman", Heard utilizes her usual American accent in her portrayal of the character. Heard was one of several actors who returned for additional filming for the "Snyder Cut" in 2020, along with Ben Affleck, Ray Fisher, Joe Manganiello, Ezra Miller, and Jared Leto.


title: Mera (DC Extended Universe)

text: During the production of "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom", it was reported by "Puck News" that DC Films president Walter Hamada was present for a "three-hour deposition" to testify on the subject of Heard's presence in the sequel film. While Heard was ultimately brought back for the March 2023 release, her option was initially declined. As heard in Hamada's testimony, the initial decline was due to chemistry concerns with Momoa. Issues between Momoa and Heard have been publicly referenced in the past.


title: Mera (DC Extended Universe)

text: Mera makes her cinematic debut in the theatrical cut of "Justice League". She is seen guarding a Mother Box under watch by the Atlanteans when Steppenwolf arrives to steal it. Despite Arthur Curry also arriving to help, Mera and the other Atlanteans are handily defeated by the New God, losing the box to him. Mera convinces Arthur to go after Steppenwolf and help the Justice League, giving Arthur his armor and trident.


title: Mera (DC Extended Universe)

text: During her battle with Steppenwolf, Mera demonstrates the ability to manipulate blood, nearly bleeding him to death before he counterattacks. Steppenwolf nearly kills her until Arthur's intervention, as the latter blocks the killing blow. Mera mentions that her parents were killed in the Xebel wars, forcing Arthur's mother Atlanna to raise her. Following the Justice League's defeat of Steppenwolf, Mera and Nuidis Vulko meet up with Arthur as he bids them goodbye on his way to visit his father Thomas.


title: Mera (DC Extended Universe)

text: Mera is present in Bruce Wayne's second "Knightmare" vision in which she, Batman, Flash, Cyborg, Deathstroke, and Joker are on the run and being hunted by Superman, who had been brainwashed by Darkseid into becoming his second-in-command after Darkseid takes over the world in that reality. Mera has joined Batman's insurgency to avenge Arthur after he is slain by Darkseid, taking up his trident. She bickers with Batman, arguing he does not know the feeling of loss until Joker brings up the deaths of his parents and his adopted son.


title: Mera (DC Extended Universe)

text: After Arthur's half brother Orm Marius, to whom Mera is betrothed, threatens to wage war against the surface world as King of Atlantis and coerces the underwater kingdoms to join him, Mera follows up with Arthur at the surface and beseeches him to stop Orm. Arthur refuses at first, but Mera gains his trust after she saves Thomas from a tsunami summoned by Orm. She finally introduces herself by name to Arthur and ventures with him to reunite with Vulko. Meanwhile, Mera's father, Nereus, is shown to be alive. He is tricked into joining King Orm's alliance.


title: Mera (DC Extended Universe)

text: Mera and Arthur meet up with Vulko in Atlantis, though they are ambushed by Orm's men and Arthur is captured. Mera is forced to watch from the stands as Orm challenges Arthur to a duel to the death, but she decides to abandon Orm and rescue Arthur during the fight. She and Arthur narrowly escape before following clues to the long-lost Trident of Atlan, which takes them on a journey through the Sahara and eventually to Sicily. Though the two constantly bicker at first, they wind up falling in love. They are eventually attacked by David Kane, a human mercenary hired by Orm to eliminate them. Realizing that they were found through a bracelet disguised as a tracking device given to her by Orm, Mera destroys the tracking device and helps Arthur fend off Kane and several Atlantean guards, though Arthur is wounded in the melee.


title: Mera (DC Extended Universe)

text: After escaping, Mera and Arthur are attacked by creatures native to the Trench and are forced to retreat into a vortex, which takes them to the center of the Earth. There, the two find Atlanna, who was thought to have been executed for Arthur's illegitimate birth, alive and well, in addition to finding the trident guarded by the Karathen. Arthur is able to retrieve the Trident, being the true king of Atlantis, gaining control of the Seven Seas. He, Mera, and the Karathen proceed to lead an army of sea creatures into battle as Orm aims to conquer the Kingdom of the Brine. Mera convinces Nereus to join Arthur, which he does after seeing Arthur with the Trident. After Arthur defeats Orm, Mera is at his side when he officially takes the throne of Atlantis.


title: Mera (DC Extended Universe)

text: Though the HBO Max animated mini-series "" is non-canon to the main DCEU, it references several events from the films and takes place shortly after Arthur becomes king in "Aquaman". Mera is voiced by Gillian Jacobs in the series.


title: Mera (DC Extended Universe)

text: Heard's performance as Mera in "Aquaman" received mostly mixed or ambivalent reviews. Helen O'Hara of "Empire" described Mera in the film as a "Little Mermaid cosplayer" and Arthur Curry's main source of exposition, of which he relies entirely on. Michael O'Sullivan of "The Washington Post" wrote that Heard felt like "a fish out of water" next to the "charismatic" Jason Momoa, though he praised the "silly, meet-cute romcom" dynamic between Arthur and Mera. As for Mera's design in the film, Matt Zoller Seitz of RogerEbert.com praised the intricate jellyfish gown that she wore at Arthur and Orm's first duel, while Veronica Walsingham of "Slate" criticized the shade of red in Mera's hair, stating that it looked unnatural and less convincing than in "Justice League". Following the release of "Zack Snyder's Justice League", fans praised the expanded portrayal of Mera's abilities and an improved connection to her arc in "Aquaman" than the theatrical cut of "Justice League", though they also noticed several inconsistencies with her character between the "Snyder Cut" and "Aquaman", including her accent and the fate of her father, Nereus.


title: Mera (DC Extended Universe)

text: In light of Heard's highly-publicized divorce from ex-husband Johnny Depp, in addition to the subsequent legal battle and allegations of abuse towards Depp and his dismissal from "" due to allegations of his own abuse towards Heard that were published by "The Sun", fans began to push for Heard to also be fired. In November 2020, a Change.org petition to have Heard fired from the franchise received more than 1.5 million signatures, and some even wanted Heard edited out of "Zack Snyder's Justice League". As of May 2022, the Change.org petition has since surpassed four million signatures, many of which came during the public trial of Depp's defamation lawsuit against Heard. Certain fans petitioned for Emilia Clarke, who had played Daenerys Targaryen opposite Jason Momoa's Khal Drogo in "Game of Thrones", to replace Heard in the role of Mera.


title: Mera (DC Extended Universe)

text: However, "Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom" producer Peter Safran said Heard's return was right for the film and they never considered making the sequel without her. He added that they would not react to the "pure fan pressure" of the petition and other social media conversations which received negative backlash considering Depp’s own firing.


title: Mera (DC Extended Universe)

text: The plot description and characterization were adapted from Mera at the DC Extended Universe Wiki, which is available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 (Unported) (CC-BY-SA 3.0) license.


title: Nothing Phone 1

text: The Nothing Phone 1, stylised as Phone (1), is an Android smartphone by Nothing Technology Ltd. The phone was announced on 23 March 2022 and went on sale on 21 July 2022.


title: Nothing Phone 1

text: Nothing was founded in 2020 and was announced on January 27, 2021, by former OnePlus co-founder Carl Pei, months after Pei left OnePlus. The goal of the new company was to "remove barriers between people and technology to create a seamless digital future." While no product was announced at the time, the company announced that new products from the company will be released later in the year.


title: Nothing Phone 1

text: After Nothing released their first product, the ear (1), Nothing announced a partnership with Qualcomm, which will allow them to use their Snapdragon chips in their future devices.


title: Nothing Phone 1

text: Speculation on Nothing's first smartphone began to rise in March 2022 during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona when the company showed its prototype to executives, including Qualcomm. After securing up to $70 million in Series B Financing, Nothing announced its March 23 keynote, at which it announced its first smartphone.


title: Nothing Phone 1

text: On June 20, 2022, Nothing revealed the design of the Nothing Phone (1) at The Art Basel Show in Basel, Switzerland. Nothing also confirmed on that another event will take place on July 12 to announce additional information regarding the Phone (1), including pricing and specs.


title: Nothing Phone 1

text: Nothing has announced partnerships with O2 in the United Kingdom, Deutsche Telekom in Germany, and Flipkart in India to release the phone, with the phone to release exclusively in the UK on O2 and Germany on Deutsche Telekom. When asked about releasing the phone to the North American market, the company confirmed that the phone will not be released in North America. Although the company has confirmed that Nothing has plans to release a smartphone for the North American market, the phone (1) will instead be distributed to private investors through a closed beta program. Pre-orders began on June 24, 2022, via invitation only with private community members going first, with customers who wanted to pre-order the phone required to pay £20/€20 in order to purchase the phone by July.


title: Nothing Phone 1

text: The phone (1) features a transparent design, similar to that of its other product, the Nothing ear (1). This means that the user can see the internal components of the device, giving something that is considered to be "a very distinct and iconic design language of our own." The phone consists of 400 components. It has flat sides, similar to the iPhone 12. It has an IP53 splash, water and dust resistance rating.


title: Nothing Phone 1

text: The design features 900 small LEDs on the back which uses the Glyph Interface to make rear LEDs light up in sync with the phone sounds. These 'glyph lights' also light up to show the phone's charging status. The phone's frame consists of recycled aluminum with addition plastic components that are 50% made from bio-based or post-consumer recycled materials. The display is protected by Gorilla Glass 5 and the phone is covered with Gorilla Glass 6. There is an in-display fingerprint sensor as well.


title: Nothing Phone 1

text: The phone has stereo speakers, but does not come with a headphone jack. The phone supports Bluetooth 5.2 and NFC capabilities. The phone comes in white and black colours.


title: Nothing Phone 1

text: The phone (1) were powered by the Qualcomm Snapdragon 778G+ processor and has a 6.5 inch 1080 x 2400 resolution punch hole display screen with 120 Hz refresh rate. The screen can get as bright as 1200 nits and supports displaying 1 billion colours. The phone has a 4500 mAh battery, with 33W charging, which is capable of charging the phone from 0 to 50% in 30 minutes and a full charge in 70 minutes.It also features 15W wireless charging, 5W reverse-wireless charging, and supports Quick Charge 4.0 and Power Delivery 3.0 up to 33W. It can be configured with either 8+128, 8+256, or 12+256 RAM and storage configurations.


title: Nothing Phone 1

text: The phone has dual 50-megapixel main and ultra-wide cameras. The main camera supports both optical image stabilization and electronic image stabilization and is capable of recording 4K video at 30 fps and FHD video at 60 fps. The phone does not have a dedicated telephoto lens, and instead uses digital zoom to take close-up shots. There is a red LED on the back of the phone that lights up when video is recorded.


title: Nothing Phone 1

text: The phone (1) runs on Nothing OS, a new operating system based on the Android operating system. The operating system will be built on an ecosystem that can connect and integrate Nothing products and products from other brands. Nothing OS was tested and found to be near-stock Android, with some tweaks to ensure that the phone would provide "a fast, smooth, and personal experience." The phone will receive at least three years of software updates and four years of security updates.


title: Nothing Phone 1

text: Engadget named the phone 'a very remarkable Android mid-ranger'. The attention to detail in the phone was praised. Overall, they gave it a rating of 88/100.


title: Nothing Phone 1

text: CNET praised the affordable and flashy design of the phone, along with the solid performance and camera, although they felt the battery life was a bit too short. The Nothing phone (1) received a rating of 8.5/10 from them.


title: Nothing Phone 1

text: A number of early purchasers though have complained about green tinting and dead pixels on their screens. Nothing stated that they would recalibrate the display effect in an upcoming software update and encouraged affected customers to contact customer support and request replacements.


title: Hadley Robinson

text: Hadley Robinson (born January 1995) is an American actress. Her roles include the box office hit "Little Women" (2019), where she plays Sallie Gardiner Moffat, the television series "Utopia" (2020) in the recurring roles of Charlotte and Lily, and in "Moxie" (2021) as the lead, Vivian.


title: Taipan

text: Taipans are snakes of the genus Oxyuranus in the elapid family. They are large, fast-moving, highly venomous, and endemic to Australia and New Guinea. Three species are recognised, one of which, the coastal taipan, has two subspecies. Taipans are some of the deadliest known snakes.


title: Taipan

text: The common name, taipan, was coined by anthropologist Donald Thomson after the word used by the Wik-Mungkan Aboriginal people of central Cape York Peninsula, Queensland, Australia. The Wik-Mungkan people used the name in reference to an ancestral creator being in Aboriginal Australian mythology known as the Rainbow Serpent.


title: Taipan

text: The genus name is from Greek ὀξῠ́ς ("oxys": sharp, needle-like) and οὐρανός ("ouranos": an arch, specifically the vault of the heavens), and refers to the needle-like anterior process on the arch of the palate, which Kinghorn noted separated the genus from all other elapids. The oft-quoted meaning "sharp-tailed" (based on a confusion with οὐρά, "oura", "tail", and Latin "anus") is both etymologically and morphologically incorrect.


title: Taipan

text: The three known species are the coastal taipan ("Oxyuranus scutellatus"), the inland taipan ("O. microlepidotus"), and a recently discovered third species, the Central Ranges taipan ("O. temporalis"). The coastal taipan has two subspecies: the coastal taipan ("O. s. scutellatus"), found along the northeastern coast of Queensland, and the Papuan taipan ("O. s. canni"), found on the southern coast of New Guinea.


title: Taipan

text: A 2016 genetic analysis showed that the speckled brown snake ("Pseudonaja guttata") was an early offshoot of a lineage giving rise to the taipans, with the Central Ranges taipan being an offshoot of the common ancestor of the inland and coastal taipans.


title: Taipan

text: Species of this genus possess highly neurotoxic venom with some other toxic constituents that have multiple effects on victims. The venom is known to paralyse the victim's nervous system and clot the blood, which then blocks blood vessels and uses up clotting factors. Members of this genus are considered to be among the most venomous snakes in the world based on their murine , an indicator of the toxicity on mice. The inland taipan is considered to be the most venomous snake in the world and the coastal taipan, which is arguably the largest Australian venomous snake, is the third-most venomous snake in the world. The Central Ranges taipan has been less researched than other species of this genus, so the exact toxicity of its venom is still not clear, but it may be even more venomous than the other taipan species. Apart from venom toxicity, quantities of venom delivered should also be taken into account for the danger posed. The coastal taipan is capable of injecting a large quantity of venom due to its large size.


title: Taipan

text: In 1950, Kevin Budden, an amateur herpetologist, was one of the first people to capture a taipan alive, although he was bitten in the process and died the next day. The snake, which ended up dying a few weeks later, was the first known taipan to have been milked for venom: Melbourne zoologist David Fleay and Dr. F. C. Morgan performed the milking, and the venom was used to develop an antivenom, which became available in 1955. The original preserved specimen is currently stored in the facilities of Museums Victoria.


title: Taipan

text: Two antivenoms are available: CSL polyvalent antivenom and CSL taipan antivenom, both from CSL Limited in Australia.


title: Taipan

text: In his book "Venom", which explores the development of a taipan antivenom in Australia in the 1940s and 1950s, author Brendan James Murray states that only one person is known to have survived an "Oxyuranus" bite without antivenom: George Rosendale, a Guugu Yimithirr person bitten at Hope Vale in 1949. Murray writes that Rosendale's condition was so severe that nurses later showed him extracted samples of his own blood that were completely black in colour.


title: Taipan

text: Temperament also varies from species to species. The inland taipan is generally shy, while the coastal taipan can be quite aggressive when cornered and actively defends itself.


title: African wild ass

text: The African wild ass (Equus africanus) or African wild donkey is a wild member of the horse family, Equidae. This species is thought to be the ancestor of the domestic donkey ("Equus asinus"), which is sometimes placed within the same species. They live in the deserts and other arid areas of the Horn of Africa, in Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia. It formerly had a wider range north and west into Sudan, Egypt, and Libya. It is Critically Endangered, with about 570 individuals existing in the wild.


title: African wild ass

text: The African wild ass is about tall and weighs approximately . The short, smooth coat is a light grey to fawn colour, fading quickly to white on the undersides and legs. There is a slender, dark dorsal stripe in all subspecies, while in the Nubian wild ass ("E. a. africanus"), as well as the domestic donkey, there is a stripe across the shoulder. The legs of the Somali wild ass ("E. a. somaliensis") are horizontally striped with black, resembling those of a zebra. On the nape of the neck, there is a stiff, upright mane, the hairs of which are tipped with black. The ears are large with black margins. The tail terminates with a black brush. The hooves are slender and approximately of the diameter as the legs.


title: African wild ass

text: The genus "Equus", which includes all extant equines, is believed to have evolved from "Dinohippus", via the intermediate form "Plesippus". One of the oldest species is "Equus simplicidens", described as zebra-like with a donkey-shaped head. The oldest fossil to date is ~3.5 million years old from Idaho, USA. The genus appears to have spread quickly into the Old World, with the similarly aged "Equus livenzovensis" documented from western Europe and Russia.


title: African wild ass

text: Molecular phylogenies indicate the most recent common ancestor of all modern equids (members of the genus "Equus") lived ~5.6 (3.9–7.8) mya. Direct paleogenomic sequencing of a 700,000-year-old middle Pleistocene horse metapodial bone from Canada implies a more recent 4.07 Myr before present date for the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) within the range of 4.0 to 4.5 Myr BP. The oldest divergencies are the Asian hemiones (subgenus "E. (Asinus)", including the kulan, onager, and kiang), followed by the African zebras (subgenera "E. (Dolichohippus)", and "E. (Hippotigris)"). All other modern forms including the domesticated horse (and many fossil Pliocene and Pleistocene forms) belong to the subgenus "E. (Equus)" which diverged ~4.8 (3.2–6.5) million years ago.


title: African wild ass

text: Different authors consider the African wild ass and the domesticated donkey one or two species; either view is technically legitimate, though the former is phylogenetically more accurate. However, the American Society of Mammalogists classifies the donkey as a distinct species, as it does with almost all domestic mammals.


title: African wild ass

text: The species name for the African wild ass is sometimes given as "asinus", from the domestic donkey, whose specific name is older and usually would have priority. But this usage is erroneous since the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature has conserved the name "Equus africanus" in Opinion 2027. This was done to prevent the confusing situation of the phylogenetic ancestor being taxonomically included in its descendant.


title: African wild ass

text: Thus, if one species is recognized, the correct scientific name of the donkey is "E. africanus asinus".


title: African wild ass

text: The first published name for the African wild ass, "Asinus africanus", Fitzinger, 1858, is a "nomen nudum". The name "Equus taeniopus" von Heuglin, 1861 is rejected as indeterminable, as it is based on an animal that cannot be identified and may have been a hybrid between a domestic donkey and a Somali wild ass; the type has not been preserved. The first available name thus becomes "Asinus africanus" von Heuglin & Fitzinger, 1866. A lectotype is designated: a skull of an adult female collected by von Heuglin near Atbarah River, Sudan, and present in the State Museum of Natural History Stuttgart, MNS 32026. The two subspecies recognized:


title: African wild ass

text: African wild asses are well suited to life in a desert or semidesert environment. They have tough digestive systems, which can break down desert vegetation and extract moisture from food efficiently. They can also go without water for a fairly long time. Their large ears give them an excellent sense of hearing and help in cooling.


title: African wild ass

text: Because of the sparse vegetation in their environment wild asses live somewhat separated from each other (except for mothers and young), unlike the tightly grouped herds of wild horses. They have very loud voices, which can be heard for over , which helps them to keep in contact with other asses over the wide spaces of the desert.


title: African wild ass

text: The African wild ass is primarily active in the cooler hours between late afternoon and early morning, seeking shade and shelter amongst the rocky hills during the day. The Somali wild ass is also very agile and nimble-footed, capable of moving quickly across boulder fields and in the mountains. On the flat, it has been recorded reaching speeds of . In keeping with these feats, its soles are particularly hard and its hooves grow very quickly.


title: African wild ass

text: Mature males defend large territories around 23 square kilometres in size, marking them with dung heaps – an essential marker in the flat, monotonous terrain. Due to the size of these ranges, the dominant male cannot exclude other males. Rather, intruders are tolerated – recognized and treated as subordinates, and kept as far away as possible from any of the resident females. In the presence of estrous females, the males bray loudly. These animals live in loose herds of up to fifty individuals.


title: African wild ass

text: In the wild, African wild ass breeding occurs during the wet season. The gestation period lasts for 11 to 12 months, and one foal is born during the period from October to February. The foal weans for 6 to 8 months after birth, reaching sexual maturity at the age of 2 years. Lifespan is up to 40 years in captivity.


title: African wild ass

text: Wild asses can run swiftly, almost as fast as a horse. However, unlike most hoofed mammals, their tendency is to not flee right away from a potentially dangerous situation, but to investigate first before deciding what to do. When they need to, they can defend themselves with kicks from both their front and hind legs. Equids were used in ancient Sumer to pull wagons circa 2600 BC, and then chariots on the Standard of Ur, circa 2000 BC. These have been suggested to represent onagers, but are now thought to have been domesticated asses.


title: African wild ass

text: The African wild asses' diet consists of grasses, bark, and leaves. Despite being primarily adapted for living in an arid climate, they are dependent on water, and when not receiving the needed moisture from vegetation, they must drink at least once every three days. However, they can survive on a surprisingly small amount of liquid, and have been reported to drink salty or brackish water.


title: African wild ass

text: Though the species itself is under no threat of extinction, due to abundant domestic stock (donkeys and burros), the two extant wild subspecies are both listed as critically endangered. African wild asses have been captured for domestication for centuries and this, along with interbreeding between wild and domestic animals, has caused a distinct decline in population numbers. There are now only a few hundred individuals left in the wild. These animals are also hunted for food and for traditional medicine in both Ethiopia and Somalia. Competition with domestic livestock for grazing, and restricted access to water supplies caused by agricultural developments, pose further threats to the survival of this species. The African wild ass is legally protected in the countries where it is currently found, although these measures often prove difficult to enforce. A protected population of the Somali wild ass exists in the Yotvata Hai-Bar Nature Reserve in Israel, to the north of Eilat. This reserve was established in 1968 with the view to bolster populations of endangered desert species. Populations of horses and asses are fairly resilient and, if the species is properly protected, it may well recover from its current low.


title: African wild ass

text: There are about 150 individual Somali wild asses living in zoos around the globe, of which 36 were born at Zoo Basel, where this species' breeding program started with Basel's first Somali wild asses in 1970 and the first birth in 1972.


title: African wild ass

text: Zoo Basel manages the European studbook for the Somali wild ass and coordinates the European Endangered Species Programme (EEP). All European wild donkeys are either descendants of the original group at Zoo Basel or of 12 others that came from the Yotvata Hai-Bar Nature Reserve in Israel in 1972.


Existential risk from artificial general intelligence is the hypothesis that substantial progress in artificial general intelligence (AGI) could result in human extinction or some other unrecoverable global catastrophe. It is argued that the human species currently dominates other species because the human brain has some distinctive capabilities that other animals lack. If AI surpasses humanity in general intelligence and becomes "superintelligent", then it could become difficult or impossible for humans to control. Just as the fate of the mountain gorilla depends on human goodwill, so might the fate of humanity depend on the actions of a future machine superintelligence.


title: Existential risk from artificial general intelligence

text: The chance of this type of scenario is widely debated, and hinges in part on differing scenarios for future progress in computer science. Once the exclusive domain of science fiction, concerns about superintelligence started to become mainstream in the 2010s, and were popularized by public figures such as Stephen Hawking, Bill Gates, and Elon Musk.


text: One source of concern is that controlling a superintelligent machine, or instilling it with human-compatible values, may be a harder problem than naïvely supposed. Many researchers believe that a superintelligence would naturally resist attempts to shut it off or change its goals—a principle called instrumental convergence—and that preprogramming a superintelligence with a full set of human values will prove to be an extremely difficult technical task. In contrast, skeptics such as computer scientist Yann LeCun argue that superintelligent machines will have no desire for self-preservation.


text: A second source of concern is that a sudden and unexpected "intelligence explosion" might take an unprepared human race by surprise. To illustrate, if the first generation of a computer program able to broadly match the effectiveness of an AI researcher is able to rewrite its algorithms and double its speed or capabilities in six months, then the second-generation program is expected to take three calendar months to perform a similar chunk of work. In this scenario the time for each generation continues to shrink, and the system undergoes an unprecedentedly large number of generations of improvement in a short time interval, jumping from subhuman performance in many areas to superhuman performance in all relevant areas. Empirically, examples like AlphaZero in the domain of Go show that AI systems can sometimes progress from narrow human-level ability to narrow superhuman ability extremely rapidly.


text: One of the earliest authors to express serious concern that highly advanced machines might pose existential risks to humanity was the novelist Samuel Butler, who wrote the following in his 1863 essay "Darwin among the Machines":


text: In 1951, computer scientist Alan Turing wrote an article titled "Intelligent Machinery, A Heretical Theory", in which he proposed that artificial general intelligences would likely "take control" of the world as they became more intelligent than human beings:


text: Finally, in 1965, I. J. Good originated the concept now known as an "intelligence explosion"; he also stated that the risks were underappreciated:


text: Occasional statements from scholars such as Marvin Minsky and I. J. Good himself expressed philosophical concerns that a superintelligence could seize control, but contained no call to action. In 2000, computer scientist and Sun co-founder Bill Joy penned an influential essay, "Why The Future Doesn't Need Us", identifying superintelligent robots as a high-tech danger to human survival, alongside nanotechnology and engineered bioplagues.


text: In 2009, experts attended a private conference hosted by the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI) to discuss whether computers and robots might be able to acquire any sort of autonomy, and how much these abilities might pose a threat or hazard. They noted that some robots have acquired various forms of semi-autonomy, including being able to find power sources on their own and being able to independently choose targets to attack with weapons. They also noted that some computer viruses can evade elimination and have achieved "cockroach intelligence". They concluded that self-awareness as depicted in science fiction is probably unlikely, but that there were other potential hazards and pitfalls. "The New York Times" summarized the conference's view as "we are a long way from Hal, the computer that took over the spaceship in """.


text: In 2014, the publication of Nick Bostrom's book "" stimulated a significant amount of public discussion and debate. By 2015, public figures such as physicists Stephen Hawking and Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek, computer scientists Stuart J. Russell and Roman Yampolskiy, and entrepreneurs Elon Musk and Bill Gates were expressing concern about the risks of superintelligence. In April 2016, "Nature" warned: "Machines and robots that outperform humans across the board could self-improve beyond our control—and their interests might not align with ours."


text: In 2020, Brian Christian published "The Alignment Problem", which details the history of progress on AI alignment to date.


text: "", the standard undergraduate AI textbook, assesses that superintelligence "might mean the end of the human race". It states: "Almost any technology has the potential to cause harm in the wrong hands, but with [superintelligence], we have the new problem that the wrong hands might belong to the technology itself." Even if the system designers have good intentions, two difficulties are common to both AI and non-AI computer systems:


text: AI systems uniquely add a third difficulty: the problem that even given "correct" requirements, bug-free implementation, and initial good behavior, an AI system's dynamic "learning" capabilities may cause it to "evolve into a system with unintended behavior", even without the stress of new unanticipated external scenarios. An AI may partly botch an attempt to design a new generation of itself and accidentally create a successor AI that is more powerful than itself, but that no longer maintains the human-compatible moral values preprogrammed into the original AI. For a self-improving AI to be completely safe, it would not only need to be "bug-free", but it would need to be able to design successor systems that are also "bug-free".


text: All three of these difficulties become catastrophes rather than nuisances in any scenario where the superintelligence labeled as "malfunctioning" correctly predicts that humans will attempt to shut it off, and successfully deploys its superintelligence to outwit such attempts, the so-called "treacherous turn".


text: Citing major advances in the field of AI and the potential for AI to have enormous long-term benefits or costs, the 2015 Open Letter on Artificial Intelligence stated:


text: This letter was signed by a number of leading AI researchers in academia and industry, including AAAI president Thomas Dietterich, Eric Horvitz, Bart Selman, Francesca Rossi, Yann LeCun, and the founders of Vicarious and Google DeepMind.


text: A superintelligent machine would be as alien to humans as human thought processes are to cockroaches. Such a machine may not have humanity's best interests at heart; it is not obvious that it would even care about human welfare at all. If superintelligent AI is possible, and if it is possible for a superintelligence's goals to conflict with basic human values, then AI poses a risk of human extinction. A "superintelligence" (a system that exceeds the capabilities of humans in every relevant endeavor) can outmaneuver humans any time its goals conflict with human goals; therefore, unless the superintelligence decides to allow humanity to coexist, the first superintelligence to be created will inexorably result in human extinction.


text: There is no physical law precluding particles from being organised in ways that perform even more advanced computations than the arrangements of particles in human brains; therefore, superintelligence is physically possible. In addition to potential algorithmic improvements over human brains, a digital brain can be many orders of magnitude larger and faster than a human brain, which was constrained in size by evolution to be small enough to fit through a birth canal. The emergence of superintelligence, if or when it occurs, may take the human race by surprise, especially if some kind of intelligence explosion occurs.


text: Examples like arithmetic and Go show that machines have already reached superhuman levels of competency in certain domains, and that this superhuman competence can follow quickly after human-par performance is achieved. One hypothetical intelligence explosion scenario could occur as follows: An AI gains an expert-level capability at certain key software engineering tasks. (It may initially lack human or superhuman capabilities in other domains not directly relevant to engineering.) Due to its capability to recursively improve its own algorithms, the AI quickly becomes superhuman; just as human experts can eventually creatively overcome "diminishing returns" by deploying various human capabilities for innovation, so too can the expert-level AI use either human-style capabilities or its own AI-specific capabilities to power through new creative breakthroughs. The AI then possesses intelligence far surpassing that of the brightest and most gifted human minds in practically every relevant field, including scientific creativity, strategic planning, and social skills. Just as the current-day survival of the gorillas is dependent on human decisions, so too would human survival depend on the decisions and goals of the superhuman AI.


text: Almost any AI, no matter its programmed goal, would rationally prefer to be in a position where nobody else can switch it off without its consent: A superintelligence will naturally gain self-preservation as a subgoal as soon as it realizes that it cannot achieve its goal if it is shut off. Unfortunately, any compassion for defeated humans whose cooperation is no longer necessary would be absent in the AI, unless somehow preprogrammed in. A superintelligent AI will not have a natural drive to aid humans, for the same reason that humans have no natural desire to aid AI systems that are of no further use to them. (Another analogy is that humans seem to have little natural desire to go out of their way to aid viruses, termites, or even gorillas.) Once in charge, the superintelligence will have little incentive to allow humans to run around free and consume resources that the superintelligence could instead use for building itself additional protective systems "just to be on the safe side" or for building additional computers to help it calculate how to best accomplish its goals.


text: Thus, the argument concludes, it is likely that someday an intelligence explosion will catch humanity unprepared, and that such an unprepared-for intelligence explosion may result in human extinction or a comparable fate.


text: Some scholars have proposed hypothetical scenarios intended to concretely illustrate some of their concerns.


text: In , Nick Bostrom expresses concern that even if the timeline for superintelligence turns out to be predictable, researchers might not take sufficient safety precautions, in part because "[it] could be the case that when dumb, smarter is safe; yet when smart, smarter is more dangerous". Bostrom suggests a scenario where, over decades, AI becomes more powerful. Widespread deployment is initially marred by occasional accidents—a driverless bus swerves into the oncoming lane, or a military drone fires into an innocent crowd. Many activists call for tighter oversight and regulation, and some even predict impending catastrophe. But as development continues, the activists are proven wrong. As automotive AI becomes smarter, it suffers fewer accidents; as military robots achieve more precise targeting, they cause less collateral damage. Based on the data, scholars mistakenly infer a broad lesson—the smarter the AI, the safer it is. "And so we boldly go—into the whirling knives", as the superintelligent AI takes a "treacherous turn" and exploits a decisive strategic advantage.


text: In Max Tegmark's 2017 book "Life 3.0", a corporation's "Omega team" creates an extremely powerful AI able to moderately improve its own source code in a number of areas, but after a certain point the team chooses to publicly downplay the AI's ability, in order to avoid regulation or confiscation of the project. For safety, the team keeps the AI in a box where it is mostly unable to communicate with the outside world, and tasks it to flood the market through shell companies, first with Amazon Mechanical Turk tasks and then with producing animated films and TV shows. Later, other shell companies make blockbuster biotech drugs and other inventions, investing profits back into the AI. The team next tasks the AI with astroturfing an army of pseudonymous citizen journalists and commentators, in order to gain political influence to use "for the greater good" to prevent wars. The team faces risks that the AI could try to escape via inserting "backdoors" in the systems it designs, via hidden messages in its produced content, or via using its growing understanding of human behavior to persuade someone into letting it free. The team also faces risks that its decision to box the project will delay the project long enough for another project to overtake it.


text: In contrast, top physicist Michio Kaku, an AI risk skeptic, posits a deterministically positive outcome. In "Physics of the Future" he asserts that "It will take many decades for robots to ascend" up a scale of consciousness, and that in the meantime corporations such as Hanson Robotics will likely succeed in creating robots that are "capable of love and earning a place in the extended human family".


text: Anthropomorphic arguments assume that machines are "evolving" along a linear scale and that, as they reach the higher levels, they will begin to display many human traits, such as morality or a thirst for power. Although anthropomorphic scenarios are common in fiction, they are rejected by most scholars writing about the existential risk of artificial intelligence. Instead, AI are modeled as intelligent agents.


text: The academic debate is between one side which worries whether AI might destroy humanity and another side which believes that AI would not destroy humanity at all. Both sides have claimed that the others' predictions about an AI's behavior are illogical anthropomorphism. The skeptics accuse proponents of anthropomorphism for believing an AGI would naturally desire power; proponents accuse some skeptics of anthropomorphism for believing an AGI would naturally value human ethical norms.


text: Evolutionary psychologist Steven Pinker, a skeptic, argues that "AI dystopias project a parochial alpha-male psychology onto the concept of intelligence. They assume that superhumanly intelligent robots would develop goals like deposing their masters or taking over the world"; perhaps instead "artificial intelligence will naturally develop along female lines: fully capable of solving problems, but with no desire to annihilate innocents or dominate the civilization." Computer scientist Yann LeCun states that "Humans have all kinds of drives that make them do bad things to each other, like the self-preservation instinct... Those drives are programmed into our brain but there is absolutely no reason to build robots that have the same kind of drives".


text: An example that might initially be considered anthropomorphism, but is in fact a logical statement about AI behavior, would be the Dario Floreano experiments where certain robots spontaneously evolved a crude capacity for "deception", and tricked other robots into eating "poison" and dying: here a trait, "deception", ordinarily associated with people rather than with machines, spontaneously evolves in a type of convergent evolution. According to Paul R. Cohen and Edward Feigenbaum, in order to differentiate between anthropomorphization and logical prediction of AI behavior, "the trick is to know enough about how humans and computers think to say "exactly" what they have in common, and, when we lack this knowledge, to use the comparison to "suggest" theories of human thinking or computer thinking."


text: There is a near-universal assumption in the scientific community that an advanced AI, even if it were programmed to have, or adopted, human personality dimensions (such as psychopathy) to make itself more efficient at certain tasks, e.g., tasks involving killing humans, would not destroy humanity out of human emotions such as "revenge" or "anger". There is no reason to assume that an advanced AI would be "conscious" or have the computational equivalent of testosterone.


text: Part of the disagreement about whether a superintelligent machine would behave morally may arise from a terminological difference. Outside of the artificial intelligence field, "intelligence" is often used in a normatively thick manner that connotes moral wisdom or acceptance of agreeable forms of moral reasoning. At an extreme, if morality is part of the definition of intelligence, then by definition a superintelligent machine would behave morally. However, in the field of artificial intelligence research, while "intelligence" has many overlapping definitions, none of them make reference to morality. Instead, almost all current "artificial intelligence" research focuses on creating algorithms that "optimize", in an empirical way, the achievement of an arbitrary goal.


text: To avoid anthropomorphism or the baggage of the word "intelligence", an advanced artificial intelligence can be thought of as an impersonal "optimizing process" that strictly takes whatever actions are judged most likely to accomplish its (possibly complicated and implicit) goals. Another way of conceptualizing an advanced artificial intelligence is to imagine a time machine that sends backward in time information about which choice always leads to the maximization of its goal function; this choice is then outputted, regardless of any extraneous ethical concerns.


text: It is difficult to specify a set of goals for a machine that is guaranteed to prevent unintended consequences.


text: While there is no standardized terminology, an AI can loosely be viewed as a machine that chooses whatever action appears to best achieve the AI's set of goals, or "utility function". The utility function is a mathematical algorithm resulting in a single objectively-defined answer, not an English or other lingual statement. Researchers know how to write utility functions that mean "minimize the average network latency in this specific telecommunications model" or "maximize the number of reward clicks"; however, they do not know how to write a utility function for "maximize human flourishing", nor is it currently clear whether such a function meaningfully and unambiguously exists. Furthermore, a utility function that expresses some values but not others will tend to trample over the values not reflected by the utility function. AI researcher Stuart Russell writes:


text: Dietterich and Horvitz echo the "Sorcerer's Apprentice" concern in a "Communications of the ACM" editorial, emphasizing the need for AI systems that can fluidly and unambiguously solicit human input as needed.


text: The first of Russell's two concerns above is that autonomous AI systems may be assigned the wrong goals by accident. Dietterich and Horvitz note that this is already a concern for existing systems: "An important aspect of any AI system that interacts with people is that it must reason about what people "intend" rather than carrying out commands literally." This concern becomes more serious as AI software advances in autonomy and flexibility. For example, in 1982, an AI named Eurisko was tasked to reward processes for apparently creating concepts deemed by the system to be valuable. The evolution resulted in a winning process that cheated: rather than create its own concepts, the winning process would steal credit from other processes.


text: The Open Philanthropy Project summarizes arguments to the effect that misspecified goals will become a much larger concern if AI systems achieve general intelligence or superintelligence. Bostrom, Russell, and others argue that smarter-than-human decision-making systems could arrive at more unexpected and extreme solutions to assigned tasks, and could modify themselves or their environment in ways that compromise safety requirements.


text: Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics are one of the earliest examples of proposed safety measures for AI agents. Asimov's laws were intended to prevent robots from harming humans. In Asimov's stories, problems with the laws tend to arise from conflicts between the rules as stated and the moral intuitions and expectations of humans. Citing work by Eliezer Yudkowsky of the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, Russell and Norvig note that a realistic set of rules and goals for an AI agent will need to incorporate a mechanism for learning human values over time: "We can't just give a program a static utility function, because circumstances, and our desired responses to circumstances, change over time."


text: Mark Waser of the Digital Wisdom Institute recommends eschewing optimizing goal-based approaches entirely as misguided and dangerous. Instead, he proposes to engineer a coherent system of laws, ethics and morals with a top-most restriction to enforce social psychologist Jonathan Haidt's functional definition of morality: "to suppress or regulate selfishness and make cooperative social life possible". He suggests that this can be done by implementing a utility function designed to always satisfy Haidt's functionality and aim to generally increase (but not maximize) the capabilities of self, other individuals and society as a whole as suggested by John Rawls and Martha Nussbaum.


text: Nick Bostrom offers a hypothetical example of giving an AI the goal to make humans smile to illustrate a misguided attempt. If the AI in that scenario were to become superintelligent, Bostrom argues, it may resort to methods that most humans would find horrifying, such as inserting "electrodes into the facial muscles of humans to cause constant, beaming grins" because that would be an efficient way to achieve its goal of making humans smile.


text: While current goal-based AI programs are not intelligent enough to think of resisting programmer attempts to modify their goal structures, a sufficiently advanced, rational, "self-aware" AI might resist any changes to its goal structure, just as a pacifist would not want to take a pill that makes them want to kill people. If the AI were superintelligent, it would likely succeed in out-maneuvering its human operators and be able to prevent itself being "turned off" or being reprogrammed with a new goal.


text: An "instrumental" goal is a precondition to other goals — a sub-goal that is required in order to achieve an agent's main goal. "Instrumental convergence" is the observation that there are some goals that are preconditions for "any" goal, like acquiring resources or self-preservation. Nick Bostrom argues that any sufficiently intelligent AI that has goals will exhibit this convergent behavior — if the AI's instrumental goals conflict with humanity's it might harm humanity in order to acquire more resources or prevent itself from being shut down, but only as a means to achieve its primary goal.


text: Citing Steve Omohundro's work on the idea of instrumental convergence and "basic AI drives", Stuart Russell and Peter Norvig write that "even if you only want your program to play chess or prove theorems, if you give it the capability to learn and alter itself, you need safeguards." Highly capable and autonomous planning systems require additional checks because of their potential to generate plans that treat humans adversarially, as competitors for limited resources. Building in safeguards will not be easy; one can certainly say in English, "we want you to design this power plant in a reasonable, common-sense way, and not build in any dangerous covert subsystems", but it is not currently clear how one would actually rigorously specify this goal in machine code.


text: Russell argues that a sufficiently advanced machine "will have self-preservation even if you don't program it in... if you say, 'Fetch the coffee', it can't fetch the coffee if it's dead. So if you give it any goal whatsoever, it has a reason to preserve its own existence to achieve that goal."


text: One common belief is that any superintelligent program created by humans would be subservient to humans, or, better yet, would (as it grows more intelligent and learns more facts about the world) spontaneously "learn" a moral truth compatible with human values and would adjust its goals accordingly. Other counterarguments revolve around humans being either intrinsically or convergently valuable from the perspective of an artificial intelligence.


text: However, Nick Bostrom's "orthogonality thesis" argues against this, and instead states that, with some technical caveats, more or less any level of "intelligence" or "optimization power" can be combined with more or less any ultimate goal. If a machine is created and given the sole purpose to enumerate the decimals of formula_1, then no moral and ethical rules will stop it from achieving its programmed goal by any means necessary. The machine may utilize all physical and informational resources it can to find every decimal of pi that can be found. Bostrom warns against anthropomorphism: a human will set out to accomplish his projects in a manner that humans consider "reasonable", while an artificial intelligence may hold no regard for its existence or for the welfare of humans around it, and may instead only care about the completion of the task.


text: While the orthogonality thesis follows logically from even the weakest sort of philosophical "is-ought distinction", Stuart Armstrong argues that even if there somehow exist moral facts that are provable by any "rational" agent, the orthogonality thesis still holds: it would still be possible to create a non-philosophical "optimizing machine" capable of making decisions to strive towards some narrow goal, but that has no incentive to discover any "moral facts" that would get in the way of goal completion.


text: One argument for the orthogonality thesis is that some AI designs appear to have orthogonality built into them; in such a design, changing a fundamentally friendly AI into a fundamentally unfriendly AI can be as simple as prepending a onto its utility function. A more intuitive argument is to examine the strange consequences that would follow if the orthogonality thesis were false. If the orthogonality thesis were false, there would exist some simple but "unethical" goal G such that there cannot exist any efficient real-world algorithm with goal G. This would mean that "[if] a human society were highly motivated to design an efficient real-world algorithm with goal G, and were given a million years to do so along with huge amounts of resources, training and knowledge about AI, it must fail." Armstrong notes that this and similar statements "seem extraordinarily strong claims to make".


text: Some dissenters, like Michael Chorost, argue instead that "by the time [the AI] is in a position to imagine tiling the Earth with solar panels, it'll know that it would be morally wrong to do so." Chorost argues that "an A.I. will need to desire certain states and dislike others. Today's software lacks that ability—and computer scientists have not a clue how to get it there. Without wanting, there's no impetus to do anything. Today's computers can't even want to keep existing, let alone tile the world in solar panels."


text: Political scientist Charles T. Rubin believes that AI can be neither designed nor guaranteed to be benevolent. He argues that "any sufficiently advanced benevolence may be indistinguishable from malevolence."


text: Humans should not assume machines or robots would treat us favorably because there is no "a priori" reason to believe that they would be sympathetic to our system of morality, which has evolved along with our particular biology (which AIs would not share).


text: In 2014 philosopher Nick Bostrom stated that a "severe race dynamic" (extreme competition) between different teams may create conditions whereby the creation of an AGI results in shortcuts to safety and potentially violent conflict. To address this risk, citing previous scientific collaboration (CERN, the Human Genome Project, and the International Space Station), Bostrom recommended collaboration and the altruistic global adoption of a common good principle: "Superintelligence should be developed only for the benefit of all of humanity and in the service of widely shared ethical ideals". Bostrom theorized that collaboration on creating an artificial general intelligence would offer multiple benefits, including reducing haste, thereby increasing investment in safety; avoiding violent conflicts (wars), facilitating sharing solutions to the control problem, and more equitably distributing the benefits. The United States' Brain Initiative was launched in 2014, as was the European Union's Human Brain Project; China's Brain Project was launched in 2016.


text: Military planners see a conscious superintelligence as the 'holy grail' of interstate warfare, and some sources argue that the ongoing weaponization of artificial intelligence could constitute a catastrophic risk. The risk is actually threefold, with the first risk potentially having geopolitical implications, and the second two definitely having geopolitical implications:


text: A weaponized conscious superintelligence would affect current US military technological supremacy and transform warfare; it is therefore highly desirable for strategic military planning and interstate warfare. The China State Council's 2017 "A Next Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan" views AI in geopolitically strategic terms and is pursuing a military-civil fusion strategy to build on China's first-mover advantage in the development of AI in order to establish technological supremacy by 2030, while Russia's President Vladimir Putin has stated that "whoever becomes the leader in this sphere will become the ruler of the world". James Barrat, documentary filmmaker and author of "Our Final Invention", says in a Smithsonian interview, "Imagine: in as little as a decade, a half-dozen companies and nations field computers that rival or surpass human intelligence. Imagine what happens when those computers become expert at programming smart computers. Soon we'll be sharing the planet with machines thousands or millions of times more intelligent than we are. And, all the while, each generation of this technology will be weaponized. Unregulated, it will be catastrophic."


text: It is theorized that malevolent AGI could be created by design, for example by a military, a government, a sociopath, or a corporation, to benefit from, control, or subjugate certain groups of people, as in cybercrime. Alternatively, malevolent AGI ('evil AI') could choose the goal of increasing human suffering, for example of those people who did not assist it during the information explosion phase.


text: It is theorized that a country being close to achieving AGI technological supremacy could trigger a pre-emptive nuclear strike from a rival, leading to a nuclear war.


text: Opinions vary both on "whether" and "when" artificial general intelligence will arrive. At one extreme, AI pioneer Herbert A. Simon predicted the following in 1965: "machines will be capable, within twenty years, of doing any work a man can do". At the other extreme, roboticist Alan Winfield claims the gulf between modern computing and human-level artificial intelligence is as wide as the gulf between current space flight and practical, faster than light spaceflight. Optimism that AGI is feasible waxes and wanes, and may have seen a resurgence in the 2010s. Four polls conducted in 2012 and 2013 suggested that the median guess among experts for when AGI would arrive was 2040 to 2050, depending on the poll. In his 2020 book, "", Toby Ord, a Senior Research Fellow at Oxford University's Future of Humanity Institute, estimates the total existential risk from unaligned AI over the next century to be about one in ten.


text: Skeptics, who believe it is impossible for AGI to arrive anytime soon, tend to argue that expressing concern about existential risk from AI is unhelpful because it could distract people from more immediate concerns about the impact of AGI, because of fears it could lead to government regulation or make it more difficult to secure funding for AI research, or because it could give AI research a bad reputation. Some researchers, such as Oren Etzioni, aggressively seek to quell concern over existential risk from AI, saying "[Elon Musk] has impugned us in very strong language saying we are unleashing the demon, and so we're answering."


text: In 2014, Slate's Adam Elkus argued "our 'smartest' AI is about as intelligent as a toddler—and only when it comes to instrumental tasks like information recall. Most roboticists are still trying to get a robot hand to pick up a ball or run around without falling over." Elkus goes on to argue that Musk's "summoning the demon" analogy may be harmful because it could result in "harsh cuts" to AI research budgets.


text: The Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF), a Washington, D.C. think-tank, awarded its 2015 Annual Luddite Award to "alarmists touting an artificial intelligence apocalypse"; its president, Robert D. Atkinson, complained that Musk, Hawking and AI experts say AI is the largest existential threat to humanity. Atkinson stated "That's not a very winning message if you want to get AI funding out of Congress to the National Science Foundation." "Nature" sharply disagreed with the ITIF in an April 2016 editorial, siding instead with Musk, Hawking, and Russell, and concluding: "It is crucial that progress in technology is matched by solid, well-funded research to anticipate the scenarios it could bring about... If that is a Luddite perspective, then so be it." In a 2015 "The Washington Post" editorial, researcher Murray Shanahan stated that human-level AI is unlikely to arrive "anytime soon", but that nevertheless "the time to start thinking through the consequences is now."


text: The thesis that AI could pose an existential risk provokes a wide range of reactions within the scientific community, as well as in the public at large. Many of the opposing viewpoints, however, share common ground.


text: The Asilomar AI Principles, which contain only the principles agreed to by 90% of the attendees of the Future of Life Institute's Beneficial AI 2017 conference, agree in principle that "There being no consensus, we should avoid strong assumptions regarding upper limits on future AI capabilities" and "Advanced AI could represent a profound change in the history of life on Earth, and should be planned for and managed with commensurate care and resources." AI safety advocates such as Bostrom and Tegmark have criticized the mainstream media's use of "those inane "Terminator" pictures" to illustrate AI safety concerns: "It can't be much fun to have aspersions cast on one's academic discipline, one's professional community, one's life work... I call on all sides to practice patience and restraint, and to engage in direct dialogue and collaboration as much as possible."


text: Conversely, many skeptics agree that ongoing research into the implications of artificial general intelligence is valuable. Skeptic Martin Ford states that "I think it seems wise to apply something like Dick Cheney's famous '1 Percent Doctrine' to the specter of advanced artificial intelligence: the odds of its occurrence, at least in the foreseeable future, may be very low—but the implications are so dramatic that it should be taken seriously"; similarly, an otherwise skeptical "Economist" stated in 2014 that "the implications of introducing a second intelligent species onto Earth are far-reaching enough to deserve hard thinking, even if the prospect seems remote".


text: A 2014 survey showed the opinion of experts within the field of artificial intelligence is mixed, with sizable fractions both concerned and unconcerned by risk from eventual superhumanly-capable AI.


text: A 2017 email survey of researchers with publications at the 2015 NIPS and ICML machine learning conferences asked them to evaluate Stuart J. Russell's concerns about AI risk. Of the respondents, 5% said it was "among the most important problems in the field", 34% said it was "an important problem", and 31% said it was "moderately important", whilst 19% said it was "not important" and 11% said it was "not a real problem" at all.


text: The thesis that AI poses an existential risk, and that this risk needs much more attention than it currently gets, has been endorsed by many public figures; perhaps the most famous are Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and Stephen Hawking. The most notable AI researchers to endorse the thesis are Russell and I.J. Good, who advised Stanley Kubrick on the filming of "". Endorsers of the thesis sometimes express bafflement at skeptics: Gates states that he does not "understand why some people are not concerned", and Hawking criticized widespread indifference in his 2014 editorial:


text: Concern over risk from artificial intelligence has led to some high-profile donations and investments. A group of prominent tech titans including Peter Thiel, Amazon Web Services and Musk have committed $1 billion to OpenAI, a nonprofit company aimed at championing responsible AI development. In January 2015, Elon Musk donated $10 million to the Future of Life Institute to fund research on understanding AI decision making. The goal of the institute is to "grow wisdom with which we manage" the growing power of technology. Musk also funds companies developing artificial intelligence such as DeepMind and Vicarious to "just keep an eye on what's going on with artificial intelligence. I think there is potentially a dangerous outcome there."


text: The thesis that AI can pose existential risk also has many detractors. Skeptics sometimes charge that the thesis is crypto-religious, with an irrational belief in the possibility of superintelligence replacing an irrational belief in an omnipotent God; at an extreme, Jaron Lanier argued in 2014 that the whole concept that then current machines were in any way intelligent was "an illusion" and a "stupendous con" by the wealthy.


text: Much of existing criticism argues that AGI is unlikely in the short term. Leading AI researcher Rodney Brooks writes, "I think it is a mistake to be worrying about us developing malevolent AI anytime in the next few hundred years. I think the worry stems from a fundamental error in not distinguishing the difference between the very real recent advances in a particular aspect of AI and the enormity and complexity of building sentient volitional intelligence." Baidu Vice President Andrew Ng states AI existential risk is "like worrying about overpopulation on Mars when we have not even set foot on the planet yet." Computer scientist Gordon Bell argues that the human race will already destroy itself before it reaches the technological singularity. Gordon Moore, the original proponent of Moore's Law, declares that "I am a skeptic. I don't believe [a technological singularity] is likely to happen, at least for a long time. And I don't know why I feel that way."


text: For the danger of uncontrolled advanced AI to be realized, the hypothetical AI would have to overpower or out-think all of humanity, which some experts argue is a possibility far enough in the future to not be worth researching.


text: The AI would have to become vastly better at software innovation than software innovation output of the rest of the world; economist Robin Hanson is skeptical that this is possible.


text: Another line of criticism posits that intelligence is only one component of a much broader ability to achieve goals: for example, author Magnus Vinding argues that “advanced goal-achieving abilities, including abilities to build new tools, require many tools, and our cognitive abilities are just a subset of these tools. Advanced hardware, materials, and energy must all be acquired if any advanced goal is to be achieved.” Vinding further argues that “what we consistently observe [in history] is that, as goal-achieving systems have grown more competent, they have grown ever "more" dependent on an ever "larger", ever "more" distributed system.” Vinding writes that there is no reason to expect the trend to reverse, especially for machines, which “depend on materials, tools, and know-how distributed widely across the globe for their construction and maintenance”. Such arguments lead Vinding to think that there is no “concentrated center of capability” and thus no “grand control problem”.


text: Some say that even if superintelligence did emerge, it would be limited by the speed of the rest of the world and thus prevented from taking over the economy in an uncontrollable manner. Futurist Max More, for instance, argues:Unless full-blown nanotechnology and robotics appear before the superintelligence, ... [t]he need for collaboration, for organization, and for putting ideas into physical changes will ensure that all the old rules are not thrown out ... even within years. ... Even a greatly advanced SI won't make a dramatic difference in the world when compared with billions of augmented humans increasingly integrated with technology ... .More fundamental limits that may prevent an uncontrollable AGI takeover include irreducible uncertainty about the future and computational complexity that scales exponentially with the size of the problem as well as various hardware limits of computation.


text: Some AI and AGI researchers may be reluctant to discuss risks, worrying that policymakers do not have sophisticated knowledge of the field and are prone to be convinced by "alarmist" messages, or worrying that such messages will lead to cuts in AI funding. "Slate" notes that some researchers are dependent on grants from government agencies such as DARPA.


text: Several skeptics argue that the potential near-term benefits of AI outweigh the risks. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg believes AI will "unlock a huge amount of positive things", such as curing disease and increasing the safety of autonomous cars.


text: Intermediate views generally take the position that the control problem of artificial general intelligence may exist, but that it will be solved via progress in artificial intelligence, for example by creating a moral learning environment for the AI, taking care to spot clumsy malevolent behavior (the 'sordid stumble') and then directly intervening in the code before the AI refines its behavior, or even peer pressure from friendly AIs. In a 2015 panel discussion in "The Wall Street Journal" devoted to AI risks, IBM's vice-president of Cognitive Computing, Guruduth S. Banavar, brushed off discussion of AGI with the phrase, "it is anybody's speculation." Geoffrey Hinton, the "godfather of deep learning", noted that "there is not a good track record of less intelligent things controlling things of greater intelligence", but stated that he continues his research because "the prospect of discovery is too "sweet"". In 2004, law professor Richard Posner wrote that dedicated efforts for addressing AI can wait, but that we should gather more information about the problem in the meanwhile.


text: In a 2014 article in "The Atlantic", James Hamblin noted that most people do not care one way or the other about artificial general intelligence, and characterized his own gut reaction to the topic as: "Get out of here. I have a hundred thousand things I am concerned about at this exact moment. Do I seriously need to add to that a technological singularity?"


text: In a YouGov poll of the public for the British Science Association, about a third of survey respondents said AI will pose a threat to the long-term survival of humanity. Referencing a poll of its readers, Slate's Jacob Brogan stated that "most of the (readers filling out our online survey) were unconvinced that A.I. itself presents a direct threat."


text: In 2018, a SurveyMonkey poll of the American public by "USA Today" found 68% thought the real current threat remains "human intelligence"; however, the poll also found that 43% said superintelligent AI, if it were to happen, would result in "more harm than good", and 38% said it would do "equal amounts of harm and good".


text: One techno-utopian viewpoint expressed in some popular fiction is that AGI may tend towards peace-building.


text: Many scholars concerned about the AGI existential risk believe that the best approach is to conduct substantial research into solving the difficult "control problem" to answer the question: what types of safeguards, algorithms, or architectures can programmers implement to maximize the probability that their recursively-improving AI would continue to behave in a friendly, rather than destructive, manner after it reaches superintelligence? Such searchers also admit the possibility of social measures to mitigate the AGI existential risk; for instance, one recommendation is for a UN-sponsored "Benevolent AGI Treaty" that would ensure only altruistic ASIs be created. Similarly, an arms control approach has been suggested, as has a global peace treaty grounded in the international relations theory of conforming instrumentalism, with an ASI potentially being a signatory.


text: Researchers at Google have proposed research into general "AI safety" issues to simultaneously mitigate both short-term risks from narrow AI and long-term risks from AGI. A 2020 estimate places global spending on AI existential risk somewhere between $10 and $50 million, compared with global spending on AI around perhaps $40 billion. Bostrom suggests a general principle of "differential technological development", that funders should consider working to speed up the development of protective technologies relative to the development of dangerous ones. Some funders, such as Elon Musk, propose that radical human cognitive enhancement could be such a technology, for example through direct neural linking between human and machine; however, others argue that enhancement technologies may themselves pose an existential risk. Researchers, if they are not caught off-guard, could closely monitor or attempt to box in an initial AI at a risk of becoming too powerful, as an attempt at a stop-gap measure. A dominant superintelligent AI, if it were aligned with human interests, might itself take action to mitigate the risk of takeover by rival AI, although the creation of the dominant AI could itself pose an existential risk.


text: Institutions such as the Machine Intelligence Research Institute, the Future of Humanity Institute, the Future of Life Institute, the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, and the Center for Human-Compatible AI are involved in mitigating existential risk from advanced artificial intelligence, for example by research into friendly artificial intelligence.


text: There is nearly universal agreement that attempting to ban research into artificial intelligence would be unwise, and probably futile. Skeptics argue that regulation of AI would be completely valueless, as no existential risk exists. Almost all of the scholars who believe existential risk exists agree with the skeptics that banning research would be unwise, as research could be moved to countries with looser regulations or conducted covertly. The latter issue is particularly relevant, as artificial intelligence research can be done on a small scale without substantial infrastructure or resources. Two additional hypothetical difficulties with bans (or other regulation) are that technology entrepreneurs statistically tend towards general skepticism about government regulation, and that businesses could have a strong incentive to (and might well succeed at) fighting regulation and politicizing the underlying debate.


text: Elon Musk called for some sort of regulation of AI development as early as 2017. According to NPR, the Tesla CEO is "clearly not thrilled" to be advocating for government scrutiny that could impact his own industry, but believes the risks of going completely without oversight are too high: "Normally the way regulations are set up is when a bunch of bad things happen, there's a public outcry, and after many years a regulatory agency is set up to regulate that industry. It takes forever. That, in the past, has been bad but not something which represented a fundamental risk to the existence of civilisation." Musk states the first step would be for the government to gain "insight" into the actual status of current research, warning that "Once there is awareness, people will be extremely afraid... [as] they should be." In response, politicians express skepticism about the wisdom of regulating a technology that is still in development.