Artificial intelligence is creeping into every aspect of our lives. AI-powered software is triaging hospital patients to determine who gets which treatment, deciding whether an asylum seeker is lying or telling the truth in their application and even conjuring up weird conceits for sitcoms. Just lately, these kinds of tools have been helping killer robots select their targets in the war in Ukraine. AI systems have been proven to carry systemic biases again and again, but their increasing centrality to the way we live makes those debates even more urgent. In typical tech fashion, AI-driven tools are advancing much faster than the laws that could theoretically govern them.

If you rode the metro in the Brazilian city of Sao Paulo in 2018, you might have come across a new kind of advertising. Glowing interactive doors featured content targeted at individuals, according to assumptions made by artificial intelligence based on their appearance. Fitted with facial recognition cameras, the screens made instantaneous decisions about passengers' gender, age and emotional state, then served them ads accordingly. Digital rights groups said the technology violated the rights of trans and non-binary people because it assigned gender to individuals based on the physical shape of their face, potentially making incorrect judgments as to their identity. It also maintained a strictly male-female model of gender, ignoring the existence of non-binary people.

The sudden suspension of a controversial multi-million dollar surveillance system used by several government agencies in Utah has opened up a debate about the lack of oversight for artificial intelligence systems in law enforcement. Last week, the Utah Attorney General's office suspended a $20.7 million contract with Banjo -- a technology firm using government surveillance data to develop crime detection software -- following revelations of the founder's past membership of a white supremacist group. Damien Patton, who serves as CEO of the SoftBank-backed company, was reportedly an active member of the Ku Klux Klan as a teenager, and participated in a 1990 drive-by shooting of a synagogue in suburban Nashville, according to the tech blog OneZero. In a statement, a spokesperson for Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes said the office would be moving forward an already planned third-party audit of the software to "address issues like data privacy and possible bias." Reyes recommended that other state agencies do the same.

From helping in the global fight against Covid-19 to driving cars and writing classical symphonies, artificial intelligence is rapidly reshaping the world we live in. But not everyone is comfortable with this new reality. The billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk has referred to AI as the "biggest existential threat" of our time. With recent scientific studies testing the technology's ability to evolve on its own, every step in its development throws up new concerns as to who is in control and how it will affect the lives of ordinary people. Here are 9 important milestones in the history of AI and the ethical concerns that have long loomed over the field.