Beware the Midas touch: How to stop artificial intelligence ruining the world

King Midas learned the hard way what happens if you don't specify exactly what you want. The emergence of general artificial intelligence could be as significant for humanity as the agricultural or industrial revolutions. But humans need to take steps early on to make sure that these AIs are built in a way which makes them helpful rather than harmful. According to Professor Nick Bostrom, a leading philosophers on artificial intelligence and founding director of Oxford University's Future of Humanity Institute, there's a way in which humans can avoid becoming slaves to machines of superior intelligence: by designing from the very beginning to ensure they're going to act in the interest of the human race. "The primary line which is being envisaged is the idea that we need to build AI in a way as such that it wants the same outcomes as we want," said Professor Bostrom, speaking at this week's IP Expo Europe 2016 show in London.