Fears of Russia-linked cyberattacks, long a threat to businesses, gained new urgency when Russian soldiers launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine last month. U.S. authorities have flagged the U.S. financial system, a central pillar in the U.S. sanctions regime, as an attractive target, and officials and security experts have warned for weeks about the possibility of retaliatory cyberattacks from Russia. Financial institutions' AI systems are uniquely exposed. "It's a huge unaccounted-for risk," said Andrew Burt, a former policy adviser to the head of the cyber division at the Federal Bureau of Investigation who now runs AI-focused law firm BNH. "The vulnerabilities of AI and complex analytic systems are significant and very widely overlooked by many of the organizations employing them."

We may be decades away from being totally wiped out by a sentient AI system like Skynet, but some experts think that "The Reckoning" is closer than we think. According to The Daily Mail, the European Parliament is taking the rise of the machines pretty seriously. In a 17-2 vote last month, it decided to begin developing a set of regulations aimed at controlling the rise of artificial intelligence. Perhaps the most striking aspect of these guidelines is the planned implementation of "electronic personhood," which would ensure a set of rights for the most advanced kinds of AI. Think about it: If robots eventually become as lifelike as the machines in Westworld, a set of basic rights would be essential in preventing the kind of deranged robot abuse depicted in the first season of HBO's hit show.