I contributed technical content and opinions to an article title “What Is AI Scheming (‘When AI Turns Evil’) and Why Should You Care” in the February 2026 edition of the Pure AI web site. See https://pureai.com/articles/2026/02/02/what-is-ai-scheming-when-ai-turns-evil-and-why-should-you-care.aspx.

Informally, AI scheming is when AI turns evil. Expressed a bit more formally, AI scheming refers to situations where an AI system uses strategies to achieve its objectives in ways that are misaligned with human intentions or even explicitly stated rules.

AI scheming has been speculated in science fiction movies for decades. In “Colossus: The Forbin Project” (1970), an AI defense system expands on its directives and assumes control of the world to end warfare.

In “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968), a space crew decides to disconnect the HAL 9000 AI. HAL does not like this and takes extreme measures against the crew.

In “Demon Seed” (1977), a scientist creates an advanced AI named Proteus. Proteus forces a human woman to bear its hybrid human-machine child to perpetuate itself.

Detecting and preventing AI scheming is difficult because much of an AI system’s reasoning is internal and opaque, even to its developers. A scheming system may behave normally during tests and only act strategically in specific situations, making problems hard to observe.

I contributed some opinions:

The Pure AI editors asked Dr. James McCaffrey, an AI expert, to comment. McCaffrey noted, “Recent research has shown that AI scheming is not just a theoretical possibility. Mild forms of AI scheming have been detected in deployed systems.”

McCaffrey added, “Many risks associated with AI, such as introducing bias against marginal groups, are significantly overstated in my opinion. But AI scheming is a serious risk and quite worrisome.”