Artificial Intelligence Basics: A Non-Technical Introduction

© Tom Taulli 2019

Tom TaulliArtificial Intelligence Basicshttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4842-5028-0_9

9. The Future of AI

The Pros and Cons

Tom Taulli¹ 

(1)

Monrovia, CA, USA

 

At the Web Summit conference in late 2017, the legendary physicist Stephen Hawking offered his opinion about the future of AI. On the one hand, he was hopeful that the technology could outpace human intelligence. This would likely mean that many horrible diseases will be cured and perhaps there will be ways to deal with environmental problems, including climate change.

But there was the dark side as well. Hawking talked about how the technology had the potential to be the “worst event in the history of our civilization.”¹ Just some of the problems include mass unemployment and ...