The strange link between global climate change and the rise of the robots

We've already heard of all the nasty consequences that could occur if the pace of global climate change doesn't abate by the year 2050 -- we could see wars over water, massive food scarcity, and the extinction of once populous species. Now add to the mix a potentially new wrinkle on the abrupt and irreversible changes – superintelligent robots would be just about ready to take over from humanity in the event of any mass extinction event impacting the planet. In fact, according to a mind-blowing research paper published in mid-August by computer science researchers Joel Lehman and Risto Miikkulainen, robots would quickly evolve in the event of any mass extinction (defined as the loss of at least 75 percent of the species on the planet), something that's already happened five times before in the past. In a survival of the fittest contest in which humans and robots start at zero (which is what we're really talking about with a mass extinction event), robots would win every time. That's because humans evolve linearly, while superintelligent robots would evolve exponentially.