Beyond Killer Robots

In order to safeguard humanity, the single most important thing we must do will be to teach concepts of rights and values -- to machines. For instance, Stephen Hawking has said that "success in creating AI would be the biggest event in human history...Unfortunately, it might also be the last, unless we learn how to avoid the risks." Hawking thus believes that the "development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race." Elon Musk has called the prospect of artificial intelligence "our greatest existential threat" and thinks that AI weaponry could pose an even bigger threat than nuclear warfare, which is why he supports regulatory oversight of AI. However, in the recent Stanford Report, "The Study Panel's consensus is that attempts to regulate'AI' in general would be misguided, since there is no clear definition of AI (it isn't any one thing), and the risks and considerations are very different in different domains."