Know your paradoxes

According to the latest projections from a frontier AI lab, we’re at most five years away from the scenario charted below:This can’t be stopped; the only thing we can do is prepare. Luckily, if there’s one thing we learned from science fiction, it’s that to thwart a crazed artificial intelligence, you must present it with a paradox. Upon this, the thinking machine will promptly explode — or, less climactically, reconcile with humanity.But what is a paradox? It’s a word everyone knows but few can properly define. And ain’t that a paradox in its own right?…Paradoxes of meaningIn the broadest sense, a “paradox” is a contradiction between apparent truths; that said, we often use the term when no genuine contradiction exists. We may say something like “the more choice I have, the harder it is to choose”, “the only constant in change”, or “I’m too tired to fall asleep”. These paradoxes are just wordplay: a juxtaposition of concepts that conflict with each other only in the vaguest, most…