On the Brink of an Artificial Intelligence Arms Race

This article was originally published by the World Economic Forum. The doomsday scenarios spun around this theme are so outlandish--like The Matrix, in which human-created artificial intelligence plugs humans into a simulated reality to harvest energy from their bodies--it's difficult to visualize them as serious threats. Meanwhile, artificially intelligent systems continue to develop apace. Self-driving cars are beginning to share our roads; pocket-sized devices respond to our queries and manage our schedules in real-time; algorithms beat us at Go; robots become better at getting up when they fall over. It's obvious how developing these technologies will benefit humanity. But, then, don't all the dystopian sci-fi stories start out this way?