King Midas learned the hard way what happens if you don't specify exactly what you want. The emergence of general artificial intelligence could be as significant for humanity as the agricultural or industrial revolutions. But humans need to take steps early on to make sure that these AIs are built in a way which makes them helpful rather than harmful. According to Professor Nick Bostrom, a leading philosophers on artificial intelligence and founding director of Oxford University's Future of Humanity Institute, there's a way in which humans can avoid becoming slaves to machines of superior intelligence: by designing from the very beginning to ensure they're going to act in the interest of the human race. This doesn't mean we need to "tie its hands behind its back and hold a big stick over it in the hope we can force it to our way" but rather that we must "build it in such a way that it's on our side and wants the same things as we do".