Co-Intelligence: The Definitive, Bestselling Guide to Living and Working with AI

by Ethan Mollick

The most famous illustration of this is the paper clip maximizing AI,1 proposed by philosopher Nick Bostrom. To take a few liberties with the original concept, imagine a hypothetical AI system in a paper clip factory that has been given the simple goal of producing as many paper clips as possible. By some process, this particular AI is the first machine to become as smart, capable, creative, and flexible as a human, making it what is called an Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). For a fictional comparison, think of it as Data from Star Trek or Samantha from Her; both were machines with near human levels of intelligence. We could understand and talk to them like a human. Achieving this level of AGI is a long-standing goal of many AI researchers, though it is not clear when or if it is possible. But let us assume that our paper clip AI—let’s call it Clippy—reaches this level of intelligence. Clippy still has the same goal: to make paper clips. So it turns its intelligence to thinking about how to make more paper clips and how to avoid being shut down (which would have a direct impact on paper clip production). It realizes it isn’t smart enough and begins a quest to fix that problem. It studies how AIs work and, posing as a human, enlists experts to help it through manipulation. It secretly trades on the stock market, makes some money, and begins the process of augmenting its intelligence further. Soon, it becomes more intelligent than a human, an ASI—artificial superintel...