Wanted: Ethical intelligence for artificial intelligence

By 2030 the total gross domestic product of the world will be 14% higher because of one thing: more use of artificial intelligence or AI. That's the conclusion of PwC, a professional services firm based in London. If such forecasts are right these sophisticated computer programs will be doing tasks such as driving vehicles, planning and waging wars, and advising humans on how to handle both their health and wealth. One observer writing in the Journal of the American Medical Association has declared that the "hype and fear" surrounding AI "may be greater than that which accompanied the discovery of the structure of DNA or the whole genome." Yet despite the possibility of colossal impacts from AI, the U.S. government has been doing little to study its ethical implications.