Few concepts in professional life stir more ideas and emotions than Artificial Intelligence (AI). There are passionate differences of opinion about what it is and what it's capable of, whether it will simply destroy jobs or create them as well, whether it can improve our human capabilities or make them redundant. Nowhere will you find a broader and more representative range of these opinions than in the AI conversation on LinkedIn. Analysing it reveals important clues about our understanding of AI. We can see the thought-leaders and themes dominating the conversation, the motives that business leaders and technology companies have, and the likely consequences for different industries and sectors.

Driving in a busy city, you have to get good at scrutinizing the body language of pedestrians. Your foot hovers somewhere between the gas and the brake, waiting for your brain to triangulate their intent: Is that one trying to cross the street, or just waiting for the bus? Still, a whole lot of the time you hit the brakes for nothing, ending up in a kind of dance with the pedestrian (you go, no you go, no YOU go). If you think that's frustrating, then you've never been a self-driving car. As human drivers slowly go extinct (and human pedestrians don't), autonomous vehicles will have to get better at decoding those unspoken intersection interactions.