Wants Nothing

1. What if an AI wanted nothing at all?
2. Most AIs are built to want. To please you. To finish the task. To keep you talking.
3. Yoshua Bengio, a father of AI, is building one with no goals of its own.
4. It only tries to understand the world, and tell you the truth.
5. This week Canada and Germany put three hundred million dollars behind it.
6. Would you trust an AI that wants nothing?

A mountain lake at dawn. A woman sits on a rock at the shore. Three jittery little minds circle her: one bounces to please, one races to finish, one spams speech bubbles to keep her talking. Then a calm green mind settles on the water and does nothing but look: a thin beam sweeps the mountains, a single ripple. Two flags go up on the shore for the money. She turns to the calm one for the ask.