From Dead Hand to Flash Collapse: risky machine to machine chain reactions.

Machine learning based algorithms are now in the wild, and read their environment to react to it. The past has already exhibited relatively benign forms of cascades or chain reactions between these. With the increasing interconnectivity of networks and complexity of algorithms, unpredictable chain reactions might lead to severe flash collapses. This possibility stays largely under the shadow of some less likely events such as a threatening strong artificial intelligence. Due to the sensational progress of machine learning -- and in particular neural networks -- for solving cognitive tasks, was resurrected a fear of technological annihilation by an "autonomous artificial intelligence".