Instead, it's typically a more prosaic end: humanity wiped out because an AI tasked with a simple goal (say, creating paper clips, an example that is often used) requisitions all the energy and raw materials on Earth to relentlessly churn out paper clips, outsmarting and out-maneuvering all human attempts to stop it.

CNN: Is AI a threat to humanity?

One moment they are appointing paper-clip monitors to deal with the supply of paper clips.

ECONOMIST: Schumpeter

He'd provide an Internet marketplace where small and medium-size businesses could buy routine supplies, from paper clips to fluorescent lighting fixtures.

FORBES: The Oops Factor

The four-strong Liberal Democrat group, more attuned to exercising power through coalition, gave it a day and a half before Lord Tope turned down the invitation to head the authority's fire and civil defence committee - seen by some as the equivalent of being paper clips monitor.

BBC: Mayor Ken's big tent

The third group, the guilt-primed participants who had been exposed to the warm bucket and paper clips, showed scores averaging 2.2 and 1.5.

ECONOMIST: Religion got it right: pain seems to assuage guilt

The remaining 19 were asked to submerge their non-dominant hand into a bucket of warm water for 90 seconds, while moving paper clips one at a time between two boxes, to keep up the illusion of the task being related to physical capabilities.

ECONOMIST: Religion got it right: pain seems to assuage guilt

The teacher, an American expat, spoke to the class solely in English, almost unheard-of in French schools where foreign languages are taught in French by French natives, and we were all handed a phonebook-sized block of paper, full of lists of verbs and pronouns, useful tips, press clips (largely from The Economist) and other things to learn.

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