As robotics and AI sprint ahead, US must battle China for supremacy

I'm afraid I can't do that." In "2001: A Space Odyssey" Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke may have presciently described our robotic future. Google's recent announcement of Duplex, "An AI System for Accomplishing Real-World Tasks Over the Phone," has once-again raised the issue of artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics. The big question now is will we end up with the HAL 9000, bent on self-preservation at any cost? Or will we get his benign cousin who unfailingly follows Isaac Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics: Would you realize you were speaking to a robot? While Google's Duplex is an AI system specifically trained for a narrow set of circumstances over the phone, it's only the beginning. What if Duplex is integrated into robots? Let's explore two future scenarios. The first is a benevolent world served by the intelligent robots we've designed. The second scenario, where intelligent robots dominate future warfare and siphon jobs away, is probably closer to the truth for many.