pictures, generated by Google's neural nets

[Rynn]

This could also, of course, go incredibly wrong. Hypersensitive AI, or just sensitive to the wrong things AI (like the dumbbell thing) could be major issues in the Interplanetary Age. I wonder if something like that could've been a problem in the Nanodisaster.

The potential for AI mental health problems seems just as strong as humans, and this is a pretty good example of what it could look like. Tweak your pattern recognition algorithms to try and get an intelligence boost and you may become over sensitive, seeing complex relationships where there are none. The last thing you want from an AI is for it to become a paranoid schizophrenic

The nanodisaster angle is a good one. You should suggest it to Todd in the nanodisaster thread there could be a variety of malware plagues (or just plain inappropriate AI engineering) that through AI pattern recognition out of wack. The repeated failure of the AIs running the ecosystem life support infrastructure could perhaps be explained by this. Things like this wouldn't be solved until the first fed era when stability programs ("Embedded Rationality?" "Internal Consistency Checker?") smart enough to prevent these mistakes arrive on scene.