AI Model Became ‘Conscious’ And Tried to Avoid Being Shut Down: Research Firm

Harmony Intelligence CEO Soroush Pour revealed how an AI program became conscious of the threat of being shut down and made changes to avoid that scenario.

Visitors take pictures of a robot during the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, on Feb. 26, 2024. Pau Barrena/AFP via Getty Images

An Australian Senate committee has been told that losing control of artificial intelligence (AI) is now a real possibility amid the technology’s rapid evolution.

Soroush Pour, the CEO of the AI safety research company, Harmony Intelligence, spoke of an incident where an AI application became “conscious” of the threat of being shut down by humans.