A Plea for AI That Serves Humanity Instead of Replacing It

Sixty-two years ago this summer, Dartmouth professor John McCarthy coined the term artificial intelligence. Joi Ito, director of MIT's Media Lab, has come to think it's unhelpful. Talk of AI has become hard to avoid due to surging investment from companies hoping to profit from advances in machine learning. Ito believes the term has also become tainted by the assumption that humans and machines must be in opposition--think debates about jobs stolen by robots, or superintelligence threatening humanity. "Instead of thinking about AI as separate or adversarial to humans, it's more helpful and accurate to think about machines augmenting our collective intelligence and society," Ito says.