Robots Won't Try To Kill Us, Says Stanford's 100-Year Study Of AI

Some people will see abundant possibility; others, the period at the end of humanity's story, as they conflate AI with killer robots and super-intelligent machines that will come to regard us as pets--or worse. A Stanford University-hosted project is under way to look past all that--past the pop-culture takes on AI, the warnings from tech thinkers, and the breathless hype about assistive AI tools in our phones and other devices. The project was set up to take the long view of AI--a very, very long view. The study is an ongoing endowed project, and its goal is for a standing committee of scientists to regularly commission reports that take expansive looks at how AI will touch different aspects of daily life. The first of those reports, the 28,000-word "Artificial Intelligence and Life in 2030," has just been released.