Don't Fear AI Progress, Steve Wozniak Says

We've been taught by movies since HAL refused to open the pod bay doors to be wary of artificial intelligence. Although the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey premiered in 1968, research house Gartner predicts that mainstream adoption of smart machines – those that utilize AI, cognitive computing, machine learning, or deep learning – will reach 30% by large companies in 2021. AI becoming reality within the next few years does not have to mean, however, that the smart machines AI brings will guarantee negative interference or impact on the human way of life. "You can't really stop progress," said Steve Wozniak, co-founder of Apple and the engineer behind the Apple II, the world-changing first mainstream personal computer, in a conversation with Design News . "Learning, science, being able to make things that never existed before--You can never stop that. Those things can turn out to have bad aspects. Study the atom and you get the atomic bomb. Learn how to build machines that can make clothing and you could have a lot of people out of work and people have to do other things."