Artificial Intelligence: Menace, Hype, Or Revolution?

Some say AI is an existential threat. Others think it can only be a force for good.

- Koh Wanzi

Everyone has something to say about AI these days. “They’re going to take away all our jobs!” panicked voices cry out stridently. “One day, they’re also going to become smarter than people and kill us all!”

That sounds like the mad ramblings of a conspiracy theorist who watched one Terminator movie too many, until you realize that Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk sits firmly in that camp. Musk isn’t taking to the streets and yelling about a robot uprising, but he has referred to AI as humanity’s “biggest existential threat”.

He’s also said that efforts to develop smarter intelligences are akin to “summoning the demon”, so there’s little doubt that he views AI as a very real threat.

More recently, Russian president Vladimir Putin weighed in, saying pointedly that “Whoever becomes the leader in this sphere will become the ruler of the world.”