The professor's great fear about AI? That it becomes the boss from hell

It has been touted as an existential risk on a par with pandemics. But when it comes to artificial intelligence, at least one pioneer is not losing sleep over such worries. Prof Michael Wooldridge, who will be delivering this year's Royal Institution Christmas lectures, said he was more concerned AI could become the boss from hell, monitoring employees' every email, offering continual feedback and even – potentially – deciding who gets fired. "There are some prototypical examples of those tools that are available today. And I find that very, very disturbing," he said.