An alien invasion involving advanced artificial intelligence could unleash a global financial meltdown, geopolitical turmoil and rioting on the streets, a leading astrophysicist has warned in a fresh intervention from the United States.
Concern over what first contact with extraterrestrial life might do to human society has moved in recent years from the fringes of science fiction into the more sober territory of risk planning. Governments are declassifying long-secret UFO files, central banks are being lobbied to think the unthinkable, and some scientists now argue that the real danger is not little green men but cold, unblinking alien AI arriving in our skies before we are remotely ready.
