Artificial Intelligence: Tech Giants Announce Partnership To Dispel Fears Over AI, Debate Future

Utter the words and the first thing many people -- if not everyone -- would think of is a "Terminator"-like sci-fi dystopia where sentient machines are hunting humans down. These misgivings about what an AI-dominated world would be like are not alleviated when the likes of Stephen Hawking warn that AI "could spell the end of the human race." Microsoft, Google, IBM, Facebook and Amazon want to change this gloomy perception. The tech giants on Wednesday announced the launch of a new non-profit organization -- the Partnership on Artificial Intelligence to Benefit People and Society, or the Partnership on AI, for short -- to advance the general public's understanding of AI technologies, and debate concerns related to ethics, privacy, and transparency. "Together, the organization's members will conduct research, recommend best practices, and publish research under an open license in areas such as ethics, fairness and inclusivity; transparency, privacy, and interoperability; collaboration between people and AI systems; and the trustworthiness, reliability and robustness of the technology," the companies said in a joint statement.