AI Rising: How companies, police and the public are already grappling with artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence might sound like a futuristic concept, and it may be true that we're years or decades away from a generalized form of AI that can match or exceed the capabilities of the human brain across a wide range of topics. But the implications of machine learning, facial recognition and other early forms of the technology are already playing out for companies, governmental agencies and people around the world. This is raising questions about everything from privacy to jobs to law enforcement to the future of humanity. On this episode of the GeekWire Podcast, we hear several different takes from people grappling right now with AI and its implications for business, technology and society, recorded across different sessions at the recent GeekWire Summit in Seattle. Listen to the episode above, or subscribe in your favorite podcast app, and continue reading for edited excerpts. Smith: I think it's fair to say that artificial intelligence will reshape the global economy over the next three decades probably more than any other single technological force, probably as much as the combustion engine reshaped the global economy in the first half of the 20th century. One of our chapters is about AI in the workforce, and we actually start it by talking about the role of horses, the last run of the fire of horses in Brooklyn in 1922. And we trace how the transition from the horse to the automobile changed every aspect of the economy. I think the same thing will be true of AI, so we should get that right.