The machines arent just getting stronger; theyre also getting smarter way smarter. Nothing says kill it with fire! like watching the disembodied hand from a metal skeleton writhing and twisting as it deliberately, methodically, implacably works its way through a Rubiks Cube until the puzzles solved. And now we cant help but wonder if the next thing this cold, calculating android wants to solve might be, yknow, people.

OpenAI the nonprofit tech outfit thats already brought us predictive artificial intelligence that can finish your thought when given a writing prompt (to hilarious effect), and can write a Lord of the Rings-style script all on its own has turned its attention to actual robotics with its latest AI demonstration, and were equally mesmerized and terrified. Check out the Terminator-like mechanical magic on display in the video below:

We dont know if the fact that this is just a hand without a body is amplifying the scare factor, or if weve just seen too many dystopian movies about murderous cyborgs. But either way, of course thats not OpenAIs goal here.

The reason [we were] excited to work on the Rubiks Cube task is that it really requires human-level dexterity, said OpenAI robotics staffer Matthias Plappert, via VentureBeat. Its a [highly] complicated task in the sense that you need to really precisely control your fingers in order to rotate the [cube] faces. [We] wanted to see how far [we could] push this approach

While it looks as though the cyber-hand is reacting to thoughts its machine learning-backed system is having on the fly, thats only partially the case. Rather than deploying a real-time AI that can think for itself independent of circumstance (a truly next-level task), this robot uses 13,000 years worth of databased simulation learning that allows it to draw on a deep well of conditional actions based on a specific challenge in this case, the challenge of solving a Rubiks Cube.

The hand is instructed by an AI algorithm called automatic domain randomization (ADR), according to the report, and can even see the positions and colors of the 54 separate colored squares that make up the cubes six 9-square sides. All of the information needed to solve the cube comes packed into the database on which the AI relies, and the software deploys reinforcement learning that is, adapted learning based on outcomes that the bot is able to measure and assess in real time to get nearer and nearer to its ultimate goal.

So long as the ultimate goal is lining up all the pretty colors into neat 3x3grids, well admit to being more than a little bit impressed. But if bots like these ever aspire to more lofty goals like organizing into a global network hellbent on eliminating mankind from the problematic equation of existence then we may have to break out the time displacement sphere and summon up a John Connor from the future to come and save us, before things get trulyout of hand.

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Disembodied cyborg hand can solve a Rubiks Cube using scary smart AI - SYFY WIRE