Ethics may be the next challenge for artificial intelligence engineers

In shows like HBO's "Westworld" and AMC's "Humans," Hollywood pits robots, with artificial intelligence, against humans. Half a century ago, a science fiction film about a space mission planted the first seeds of doubt about just how the human race could coexist with man-made sentient beings. "Consider the fictional robot HAL in '2001: A Space Odyssey,' " said Ken Ford, a computer scientist and founder and CEO of the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition, in Pensacola, which has won awards for its robotics innovations. HAL eventually turned on its master in that classic film, sending shivers down the spines of moviegoers everywhere. Some of that wariness about artificial intelligence still exists, but Ford said the fear is unwarranted, and in the case of fictional robots, misplaced.