Over the past few weeks, there's been some very public hand-wringing about artificial intelligence--a lot of it coming from people who have made A.I. their life's work. Geoffrey Hinton, dubbed the "godfather of A.I.," recently left his job at Google to embark upon a sort of media tour warning about the dangers of the technology. There was a public letter from Elon Musk and others calling for a pause in A.I. development and an essay in Time from theorist Eliezer Yudkowsky saying generative A.I. can harm humanity--or even end it. On Friday's episode of What Next: TBD, I spoke with Meredith Whittaker, president of the Signal Foundation and co-founder of the AI Now Institute at NYU, to sort through the real threat of A.I. and what the doomerism discourse is missing. Our conversation has been edited and condensed for clarity. What do you make of the concerns raised by Geoffrey Hinton and others when it comes to A.I. safety?

These days it seems like nearly every tech startup is touting the use of AI in their products or business processes. They release press and marketing materials advertising smart, new features that "look" like artificial intelligence, all under the guise that this rebrand will serve the end user better. "We're doing it to save you money …. Unfortunately, recent data shows that companies are less than honest about their use of artificial intelligence, advertising AI product features that are really just basic automation technology features. There is value -- cash value -- associated with a company's ability to appear "tech-savvy". The UK investment firm MMC Ventures says that startups with some type of AI component can attract as much as 50 percent more funding than other software companies. Nevermind that the Wall Street Journal suspects 40 percent or more of those companies don't use any form of real AI at all. "Artificial Intelligence" is the ultimate marketing buzzword.