The ‘War Games’ problem: Computer science has long understood what it takes to keep AI under control

In the movie 'War Games' an AI plays a game with the real threat of triggering nuclear Armageddon. Courtesy of United Artists/Amazon MGM Studios

AI agents don’t go rogue. That’s something only humans do.

Nevertheless, a New York Times article – representative of much news coverage of AI – described an OpenAI hacking as “A.I. bots going rogue and independently spearheading a cyberattack.”