rapidly exterminates humans as a byproduct of pursuing arbitrary goals. The idea is seen in Karel Čapek's R.U.R., which introduced the word robot to the global lexicon in 1921, and can even be glimpsed in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (published in 1818), as Victor ponders whether, if he grants his monster's request and makes him a wife, they would reproduce and their kind would destroy humanity. The word "robot" from R.U.R. comes from the Czech word, robota, meaning laborer or serf. The 1920 play was a protest against the rapid growth of technology, featuring manufactured "robots" with increasing capabilities who eventually revolt. HAL 9000 (1968) and the original Terminator (1984) are two iconic examples of hostile AI in pop culture. Contributing factors Advantages of superhuman intelligence over humans Nick Bostrom and others have expressed concern that an AI with the abilities of a competent artificial intelligence researcher would be able to modify its own source code and increase its own intelligence. If its self-reprogramming leads to its getting even better at being able to reprogram itself, the result could be a recursive intelligence explosion where it would rapidly leave human intelligence far behind. Bostrom defines a superintelligence as "any intellect that greatly exceeds the cognitive performance of humans in virtually all domains of interest", and enumerates some advantages a superintelligence would have if it chose to compete against humans: Technology research: A machine with superhuman scientific research abilities would be able to beat the human research community to milestones such as nanotechnology or advanced biotechnology. Strategizing: A superintelligence might be able to simply outwit human opposition. Social manipulation: A superintelligence might be able to recruit human support, or covertly incite a war between humans. Economic productivity: As long as a copy of the AI could produce more economic wealth than the cost of its hardware, individual humans would have an incentive to voluntarily allow the Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) to run a copy of itself on their systems. Hacking: A superintelligence could find new exploits in computers connected to the Internet, and spread copies of itself onto those systems, or might steal money to finance its plans. Sources of AI advantage According to Bostrom, a computer program that faithfully emulates a human brain, or that otherwise runs algorithms that are equally powerful as the human brain's algorithms, could still become a "speed superintelligence" if it can think many orders of magnitude