THE A.I. TAKEOVER CONSPIRACY
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My Gripe: Elon Musk, Bill Gates, Ray Kurzweil, all these luminaries waxing about how AI will take over and it'll be lights out for humanity...

   I mean its enough to chap one's hide...

Their field of misinformation and slop-thought is so -rich- (sorry, couldn't resist that)...where to start...
How about how Gates (29 Jan. 2015) reports that he can't understand why other people are not worried about this.

Here's one physicists take on the confusion. I will say it right here right now: Machines will never take over and kill all the humans unless we humans want them and make them too do so, abetting them with our active, continuous support. There is no convergence. If you want to be scared, be scared about something real that we know about: namely large impactors.

AI Takeover? Yeah, I'm not too worried and here's a few reasons:

1) (What's the real deal:) Machines are reflex engines only. Human brains are not just reflex engines. Notice I didn't say what human brains were....

2) (Technical reason 1: Machines waaaay too primitive) Reflex engines are printed (basically really still 2-d) and large. Biology is 3-d and basically works across all scales from atomic up. It is not great, but there is nothing like it that we've ever made. period. Manufacturing is still in the stone age.

3) (Technical reason 2: Category faults)
                                              Information is not knowledge
                                              Knowledge is not understanding
                                              Understanding is not Wisdom
point is, reflex engines are really at the first level in the heirarchy. Now, of course, they do not have to master the heirarchy to kill us all. True. Problem is, since we can ascend the heirarchy we can probably get them first, as we may have a broader context to more early identify the problems and make a change.

4) (Technical reason 3: Frailty in deep time) Humans cheap, feed on grasses mostly, each Human/grass a replication bomb. They all come from deep time.
Reflex engines need a big wheel turning somewhere to power them. Not clear if you can get through deep time without something like sex...but maybe they don't have to;  just kill all humans and reach a stasis?

5) (Technical reason 4: Ill-equiped at the physical layer) One gets the sense that these folks who purport to believe in the great AI takeover are enamored with how facile computers are at changing logic levels, again, the reflex engine layer. But there are real, significant problems at the physical layer, as one immediately recognizes if you try to build a robot. The motors and hydraulics and pneumatic actuation (ideas that are now hundreds of years old) we use in robots is generally of very limited capability/utility compared space for space and power for power with actuation in a muscle "fabric". A person can do a somersault, turn around and thread a needle. Quick. Note these items area doing work at significantly different force/motion scales. Machines? My point is that there is a basic mismatch between how we now actuate robots and the needs in the world around them. Hey, its only been 150 years since the electric motor...maybe improvements coming? Not! Probably a pretty mature technology.

 6) (Technical reason 5: Reflex engines are soon to be peaking in performance)

7) (Technical reason 6: