In the first, the AI model was programmed to detect whether it was about to be shut down and to replicate itself before it could be terminated. In the other, the AI was instructed to clone itself and then program its replica to do the same – setting up a cycle that could continue indefinitely.

Like how any regular application can be instructed to copy itself i.e. a computer worm? Not exactly shocking for a computer program to do.

They gave it command line access and told it to copy files into another directory. It still sounds quite trivial.

I was worried this meant it could program and/or train a copy of itself from scratch, but this is just the basic “copy/paste your own files” case.

How much longer until we get cylons and we’re in a race through space for survival?