Artificial Intelligence: A step toward apocalypse

It seems we may have moved one step closer to the Singularity -- or the Apocalypse. Research company DeepMind, a subsidiary of Alphabet (Google's parent company) has created something called AlphaCode, a software system which writes software. Some think this is a step toward true Artificial Intelligence (AI), a machine you can discuss the meaning of life with, which Elon Musk calls the biggest existential threat to humanity. Thinking machines have been a staple of Science Fiction for generations now and a good thing too. Because we need to consider those speculations if we are indeed on the threshold of a breakthrough in machine intelligence.