It's Time To Take AI Seriously

One is overly credulous scare-mongering. But the other extreme is equally dangerous--complacency that we can overlook these issues now, because humanity-threatening AI is decades or more away. Whether it is down to scare-mongering or complacency, serious debates about the role of government, regulatory bodies and courts in regulating AI have been lacking. There are a number of possible explanations for this: the so-called'legal lag problem' where law is seen as invariably playing catch-up to rapid technological advances; the apparent anti-government libertarian bent of Silicon Valley; and the possibility that AI might elude traditional regulatory regimes. Like nuclear power and genetic research, AI is a classic risk/reward technology.