Can we have ethical artificial intelligence?

Artificial intelligence holds a unique place in our collective psychology. Endless imaginings of superintelligent machines and their impact on the human race have been created in films, books and even songs. Some of these versions are incredibly dark – the short story I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream tells of a frustrated hyper-intelligent machine that endlessly and brutally tortures the few remaining humans for consigning it to perpetual boredom. Marvin the Paranoid Android, of A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, finds itself in a similar predicament, though expresses it in a somewhat more passive way. Films like I, Robot present a more practical story about the troubled relationship that people might have with intelligent machines.