Harm or help? Here's what our AI future really looks like

The hype around artificial intelligence (AI) has reached a fever pitch in the past few months, as tech giants such as Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Apple have unveiled new AI technology that could bring it out of the realm of science fiction and into the mainstream. Google recently unveiled its Google Home platform as a competitor to Amazon's Echo AI, and blogged how its chip technology has pushed machine learning and intelligence "seven years into the future." Amazon's dedicated staff of 1,000 Alexa developers is fending off the big G by reportedly teaching its software to recognize your emotional state as it sells you stuff. And Facebook, IBM, and other tech giants are using AI to study your social media presence and search history to sell you goods and advertise products. Meanwhile, Apple announced at this week's WWDC that it's placing a smarter Siri on not just every iOS 10 device, but also macOS and allowing third-party developers access to the Siri SDK.