Physicists Must Engage with AI Ethics, Now

Popular media depictions of AI often involve apocalyptic visions of killer robots, humans mined for resources, or the elimination of the human race altogether. Even the rosier visions of an AI-driven world imagine most traditional human efforts and behaviors replaced with machines. Our collective imaginations of AI are often focused on this "singularity"--an irreversible point when technology overtakes humanity. However, the realization of this kind of artificial general intelligence (AGI), where a machine can perform any cognitive task a human can, remains a long way off. It is true that there have been impressive advances in machine learning (ML) and that algorithms can now best humans at various tasks.