The past few days has seen a video claiming that 4 AI robots killed 29 scientists in a secret lab in South Korea go viral on social media. The video, which features a woman narrating a story to an audience has caused a lot of speculation on the future of AI-controlled robots and their interaction with human beings.
Quick research (also known as Googling) has shown that the woman in question is a conspiracy theorist and UFOlogist Linda Moulton Howe, who made the presentation at the Conscious of Life Expo in Los Angeles in February 2018. The viral clip is only a small section of her presentation, actually, it’s the very beginning of her presentation. Interestingly, the clip has been altered to claim that the robot massacre occurred in South Korea, while in her presentation, she claimed it happened in Japan.
https://youtu.be/UT1Pj7N37Pw
During her presentation, Linda told the story of how four AI robots killed 29 scientists in Japan. A story that she apparently heard from a former Marine who had been doing contract work for government agencies.
Well, after numerous shares online, fact-checking service Snopes has released a report terming Linda’s story as false. According to Snopes, the massacre story seemed to function as an attention-grabber to her presentation on the dangers of artificial intelligence, alien encounters and concluded by saying that humans may actually be the artificially intelligent creations of an alien race.
Snopes points out a few issues with the massacre narrative that support their conclusion of it being a false story. First, the story is void of specifics. Linda does not reveal the source of her information, the name of the factory where the alleged massacre occurred, or the names of any of the scientists who were reportedly killed. Secondly, Linda claims that the attack was covered up by the government, but Snopes says that there’s no report of missing scientists even if the robot aspect would have been obscured. Lastly, Linda’s story has a twist. In an interview, she retells the same story, only that this time around she claims that her source did not witness the killings but was also sharing with her a story he had heard.
Conclusion? No AI robots killed scientists in any part of the world, whether Japan or South Korea, at least, there’s no evidence to support this narrative. Next time you want to hit that share button, make Google your friend.
