Artificial intelligence--AI--is an information technology. And it is already deeply embedded into our social fabric, both in ways we understand and in ways we don't. It will hack our society to a degree and effect unlike anything that's come before. I mean this in two very different ways. One, AI systems will be used to hack us. And two, AI systems will themselves become hackers: finding vulnerabilities in all sorts of social, economic, and political systems, and then exploiting them at an unprecedented speed, scale, and scope. We risk a future of AI systems hacking other AI systems, with humans being little more than collateral damage. Okay, maybe it's a bit of hyperbole, but none of this requires far-future science-fiction technology. I'm not postulating any "singularity," where the AI-learning feedback loop becomes so fast that it outstrips human understanding. My scenarios don't require evil intent on the part of anyone. We don't need malicious AI systems like Skynet (Terminator) or the Agents (Matrix). Some of the hacks I will discuss don't even require major research breakthroughs. They'll improve as AI techniques get more sophisticated, but we can see hints of them in operation today. This hacking will come naturally, as AIs become more advanced at learning, understanding, and problem-solving. In this essay, I will talk about the implications of AI hackers. First, I will generalize "hacking" to include economic, social, and political systems--and also our brains. Next, I will describe how AI systems will be used to hack us. Then, I will explain how AIs will hack the economic, social, and political systems that comprise society. Finally, I will discuss the implications of a world of AI hackers, and point towards possible defenses. It's not all as bleak as it might sound. Caper movies are filled with hacks. Hacks are clever, but not the same as innovations. Systems tend to be optimized for specific outcomes. Hacking is the pursuit of another outcome, often at the expense of the original optimization Systems tend be rigid. Systems limit what we can do and invariably, some of us want to do something else. But enough of us are. Hacking is normally thought of something you can do to computers. But hacks can be perpetrated on any system of rules--including the tax code. But you can still think of it as "code" in the computer sense of the term. It's a series of algorithms that takes an input--financial information for the year--and produces an output: the amount of tax owed. It's deterministic, or at least it's supposed to be.

Pigs, rats, and locusts have it easy these days--they can bother whoever they want. But back in the Middle Ages, such behavior could have landed them in court. If a pig bit a child, town officials would hold a trial like they would for a person, even providing the offender with a lawyer. Getting insects to show up in court en masse was a bit more difficult, but the authorities tried anyway: They'd send someone out to yell the summons into the countryside. That's hilarious, yes, but also a hint at how humans might navigate a new, even more complicated relationship.

Dr Kate Darling is a research specialist in human-robot interaction, robot ethics and intellectual property theory and policy at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab. In her new book, The New Breed, she argues that we would be better prepared for the future if we started thinking about robots and artificial intelligence (AI) like animals. What is wrong with the way we think about robots? So often we subconsciously compare robots to humans and AI to human intelligence. The comparison limits our imagination.

Hosted by Dylan Doyle-Burke and Jessie J Smith, Radical AI is a podcast featuring the voices of the future in the field of artificial intelligence ethics. In this episode Jess and Dylan chat to Kate Darling about our relationships with robots. Have you ever seen a robot and called it cute? Have you ever seen a drone and felt afraid? Have you ever apologized to siri or yelled at your rumba to get out of the way?

This week saw the return, for a third season, of the critically acclaimed HBO series Westworld. WW's central premise in its first 2 seasons was a theme park, sometime in the near future, populated by highly realistic robots or'hosts'. Human guests can pay exorbitant sums to interact with these robots, in a huge range of ways. In the'western' themed area – after which the show is named – guests can choose to be white-hatted heroes or black-hatted villains. The good guys get to be brave, chivalrous, honourable and generally decent.

Undiscovered is a podcast from Science Friday and WNYC Studios about the left turns, missteps, and lucky breaks that make science happen. We tell the stories of the people behind the science, and the people affected by it. Listen to more episodes here. If you were given a robot and asked to break it, would you do it? The amount of Furby destruction videos on Youtube suggest it wouldn't be that hard.

Nearly every step wrought havoc upon the prototype walker's frame. Designed to activate landmines in the most direct means possible, the EOD robot was nevertheless persistent enough to pick itself back up after each explosion and hobble forth in search of more damage. It continued on until it could barely crawl, its broken metal belly scraping across the scorched earth as it dragged itself by a single remaining limb. The scene proved to be too much for those in attendance. The colonel in charge of the demonstration quickly put an end to the macabre display, reportedly unable to stand the scene before him.

Could you hit a toy robot with a hammer? The answer to that question might tell you more about yourself than you'd think. If you've seen the TV series Westworld, you may remember this line. A man named William has just arrived at Westworld, a sort of wild west theme park where people can interact with human-like robots. We have some indication that we can measure people's empathy using robots, which is pretty interesting. The host who greets him looks and sounds 100 percent human.

MIT's Kate Darling, who writes the rules of human-robot interaction, says an AI-enabled apocalypse should be the least of our concerns. A s a law student in Switzerland, Kate Darling's interest in robots was just a hobby. She had purchased a PLEO robot dinosaur that was designed to respond to human contact emotionally and act independently. "It really struck me that I responded to the cues the robot was giving me, even though I knew exactly how the toy worked," Darling says. "I knew where all the motors were and how it worked, and why it would cry when you held it up by the tail, but I was just so compelled to comfort it and make it stop crying."

Tech companies are betting big on conversational bots as the next big thing. But you might want to be nice to those bots. CBC Radio technology columnist Dan Misener says the way we treat them reveals a lot about who we are as humans. Because the chatbots are coming, and we're just starting to see the first wave. Facebook recently unveiled its plans for chatbots that live inside its Messenger app.