A Veiled Warning on Artificial Intelligence from 1966

"In order for a program to improve itself substantially it would have to have at least a rudimentary understanding of its own problem-solving process and some ability to recognize an improvement when it found one. There is no inherent reason why this should be impossible for a machine. Given a model of its own workings, it could use its problem-solving power to work on the problem of self-improvement. The present programs are not quite smart enough for this purpose; they can only deal with the improvement of programs much simpler than themselves. Once we have devised programs with a genuine capacity for self-improvement a rapid evolutionary process will begin.... Whether or not we could retain some sort of control of the machines, assuming that we would want to, the nature of our activities and aspirations would be changed utterly by the presence on earth of intellectually superior beings. "The audience is tense with excitement as the hero in the film play struggles frantically with the control apparatus of a submarine that is fast sinking to the ocean bottom.