Experts disagree over threat posed but artificial intelligence cannot be ignored

For some AI experts, a watershed moment in artificial intelligence development is not far away. And the global AI safety summit, to be held at Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire in November, therefore cannot come soon enough. Ian Hogarth, the chair of the UK taskforce charged with scrutinising the safety of cutting-edge AI, raised concerns before he took the job this year about artificial general intelligence, or "God-like" AI. Definitions of AGI vary but broadly it refers to an AI system that can perform a task at a human, or above human, level – and could evade our control. Max Tegmark, the scientist behind a headline-grabbing letter this year calling for a pause in large AI experiments, told the Guardian that tech professionals in California believe AGI is close. "A lot of people here think that we're going to get to God-like artificial general intelligence in maybe three years.