Let's not succumb to a moral panic over artificial intelligence

We have a long history of "moral panics." Things that we fear, whether we should or not. In most cases, these fears aren't entirely irrational, but based on exaggerations or predictions that could, but probably won't, come true or simply are not nearly as horrific as may first appear. Many of us remember the Y2K scare of 1999, when we were told that the power grid, ATMs and our transportation systems could come to a screeching halt at midnight on Jan.1, 2000 because computers weren't programmed to recognize a new century. And, yes, there were a handful of problems, but the world didn't come to an end. There was a panic that our personal privacy was over in 1988 when Kodak introduced the first portable camera.