Philanthropists should treat AI as an ethical not a technological challenge

The list of existential threats to mankind on which wealthy philanthropists have focused their attention -- catastrophic climate change, pandemics and the like -- has a new addition: artificially intelligent machines that turn against their human creators. Artificial intelligence (AI) could pose a threat "greater than the danger of nuclear warheads, by a lot", according to Elon Musk, the entrepreneur behind electric car maker Tesla. As the author James Barrat put it, a superhuman intelligence, equipped with the ability to learn but without the ability to empathise, might well be Our Final Invention. Even if the machines are not going to kill us, there are plenty of reasons to worry AI will be used for ill as well as for good, and that advances in the field are coming faster than our ability to think through the consequences. Between facial recognition and autonomous drones, AI's potential impact on warfare is already obvious, stirring employee concern at Google and other pioneers in the field.