Open AI: Effort to democratize artificial intelligence research?

Debates on the future of artificial intelligence often boil down to questions about whether the technology could help humans -- detecting patterns that could help solve crimes or driving autonomous car, for example -- or become the stuff of dystopian nightmares that have long fueled science fiction. With a $1 billion investment in a non-profit called Open AI, Tesla head Elon Musk and several other prominent tech executives are aiming for the former, while taking a swipe at the latter. The new company will make its patents and research open to the public in a bid to increase transparency about AI's potential rather than focusing on its commercial implications, say its backers -- who include LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, venture capitalist Peter Thiel, the start-up incubator Y-Combinator, and Amazon Web Services. "Since our research is free from financial obligations, we can better focus on a positive human impact," says the group in a statement. "We believe AI should be an extension of individual human wills and, in the spirit of liberty, as broadly and evenly distributed as possible... It's hard to fathom how much human-level AI could benefit society, and it's equally hard to imagine how much it could damage society if built or used incorrectly."