Artificial-intelligence (AI) research is now progressing rapidly. Recent landmarks such as self-driving cars, a computer winning at Jeopardy! and the digital personal assistants Siri, Google Now and Cortana are merely symptoms of an IT arms race fuelled [sic] by unprecedented investments and building on an increasingly mature theoretical foundation … So, facing possible futures of incalculable benefits and risks, the experts are surely doing everything possible to ensure the best outcome, right? Wrong. … Although we are facing potentially the best or worst thing to happen to humanity in history, little serious research is devoted to these issues …
Stephen Hawking: ‘Transcendence looks at the implications of artificial intelligence – but are we taking AI seriously enough?’ Stephen Hawking, Stuart Russell, Max Tegmark, Frank Wilczek, May, 1, 2014