Does AI really threaten the future of the human race? - BBC News

The end of the human race - that is what is in sight if we develop full artificial intelligence, according to Stephen Hawking in an interview with the BBC. But how imminent is the danger and if it is remote, do we still need to worry about the implications of ever smarter machines? My question to Professor Hawking about artificial intelligence comes in the context of the work done by machine learning experts at the British firm Swiftkey, who have helped upgrade his communications system. So I talk to Swiftkey's co-founder and chief technical officer, Ben Medlock, a computer scientist with a Cambridge doctorate which focuses on how software can understand nuance in language. Ben Medlock told me that Professor Hawking's intervention should be welcomed by anyone working in artificial intelligence: "It's our responsibility to think about all of the consequences good and bad", he told me.