Artificial Intelligence: Is it safe?

This month, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) issued a "Blueprint for an AI Bill of Rights." The document maps out areas in which artificial intelligence (AI) might be a threat to our existing rights and establishes a set of rights that individuals should expect to have as they use these emerging technologies. The OSTP blueprint sends two messages. First, it acknowledges that AI is affecting -- and likely will transform -- everything: changing medical practices, businesses, how we buy products and how we interact with each other. Second, it highlights the fact that these technologies, while transformational, can also be harmful to people at an individual, group and societal scale, with potential to extend and amplify discriminatory practices, violations of privacy or systems that are neither safe nor effective.