Will artificial intelligence end the world as we know it? Why tech

Google is training AI to identify human behavior, using clips from movies. Call it what you want, but AI by any name had the tech world uniquely divided in 2017, and the new year isn't likely to bring any quick resolutions. In case you missed it, the fiery debate over AI's potential impact on society was encapsulated by the opinions of two bold-face Silicon Valley names. Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk told the National Governors Association this fall that his exposure to AI technology suggests it poses "a fundamental risk to the existence of human civilization." Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg parried such doomsday talk -- which would include cosmologist Stephen Hawking's view that AI could prove "the worst event in the history of civilization" -- with a video post calling such negative talk "pretty irresponsible."