People are scared of artificial intelligence for all the wrong reasons

People in Britain are more scared of the artificial intelligence embedded in household devices and self-driving cars than in systems used for predictive policing or diagnosing diseases. That's according to a survey commissioned by the Royal Society, which is billed as the first in-depth look at how the public perceives the risks and benefits associated with machine learning, a key AI technique. Participants in the survey were most worried by the notion that a robot, acting on conclusions derived by machine learning, would cause them physical harm. Accordingly, machines with close proximity to their users, such as those in the home and self-driving cars, were viewed as very risky. The notion of a robot animated by AI is known as "embodiment."