Algorithms Are Designed to Addict Us, and the Consequences Go Beyond Wasted Time

Goethe's The Sorcerer's Apprentice is a classic example of many stories in a similar theme. The young apprentice enchants a broom to mop the floor, avoiding some work in the process. But the enchantment quickly spirals out of control: the broom, mono-maniacally focused on its task but unconscious of the consequences, ends up flooding the room. The classic fear surrounding hypothetical, superintelligent AI is that we might give it the wrong goal, or insufficient constraints. Even in the well-developed field of narrow AI, we see that machine learning algorithms are very capable of finding unexpected means and unintended ways to achieve their goals.