BioEdge: Artificial concerns about artificial intelligence

Earlier this year, the American Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) awarded their facetious'annual Luddite award' to a lose coalition of AI sceptics, including Tesla CEO Elon Musk and renown physicist Stephen Hawking. The ITIF labelled the likes of Musk and Hawking'alarmists' engaged in and "feverish hand-wringing about a looming artificial intelligence apocalypse". Yet the sarcastic gesture did not go down well. This week Nature published a scathing critique of the ITIF's'fanciful futurism', defending the'legitimate concerns' of Musk and Hawking. Ironically, the risks of AI are already being felt indirectly as universities lose young talent to the corporate sector.