Nick Bostrom has earned a lot of readers and several big name believers when it comes to his concerns about artificial intelligence. He essentially argues “that true artificial intelligence, if it is realized, might pose a danger that exceeds every previous threat from technology — even nuclear weapons — and that if its development is not managed carefully humanity risks engineering its own extinction.” The New Yorker’s Raffi Khatchadourian on The Doomsday Invention.

+ “Now imagine that that doll was not only recording every one of your most intimate conversations and curious questions but learning how to respond to you.” Is Hello Barbie every parent’s worst nightmare? (Barbie could reach the Singularity and she still wouldn’t have a chance to survive a conversation with my 7 year-old daughter.)