What 7 of the World's Smartest People Think About Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) will end us, save us or--less jazzy-sounding but the more probable intersection of both--eventually obsolete us. From humbling chess grandmaster losses at the hands of mathematically brilliant supercomputers to semantic networks with the linguistic grasp of a four-year-old, one thing seems certain: AI is coming. Here's what today's brightest programmers, philosophers and entrepreneurs have said about our terrifying, astonishing future. Altman, who's working on developing an open-source version of AI that would be available to all rather than the few, believes future iterations could be designed to self-police, working only toward benevolent ends. The 30-year-old computer programmer and president of startup incubator Y Combinator says his "OpenAI" system will surpass human intelligence in a matter of decades, but that the fact that it's available to anyone (as opposed to locked behind private, proprietary doors) should offset any risks.