When it comes to Artificial Intelligence (AI), it seems that there is always someone smarter than you, who believes the complete opposite.

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Artificial intelligence is a very complex topic that has permeated science fiction, governments and tech companies in a way that is very unique. Experts in the field often speak to the ability of such software to cure diseases and advance the human race. CEO’s of massive companies warn of the potential dangers of improperly managed AI. All this while thousands of books, movies and television series depict artificial intelligence as an impending doomsday machine that will inevitably destroy all of humanity.

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As a result of these mixed messages, there are a lot of misconceptions about artificial intelligence and what it means for the future of humanity. In addition to this, many news outlets will, either through laziness or opportunism, spread misinformation about the technology in order to increase ad revenue.

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As an example, a social media news video stated that Facebook “had to shut down an AI because it developed its own language.” This video, which has 65k likes and 112k shares, describes a scenario in which scientists designed an AI to make communication more efficient. The program began to use “code words” in order to achieve this goal. As the video states, the project was shut down, but not out of fear of the AI gaining sentience. In fact, the project was deemed a failure because the researchers had not included certain requirements in their original design, and therefore the results were rather useless.

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A Penn State student studying software engineering had this to say. “It's a system that's doing exactly what it was programmed it to do. The only time (AI) becomes a threat is when you give it access to something that is truly dangerous.”

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Although the technical understanding is lacking, there are some interesting facts that are brought up in the video. Tesla, SpaceX and tech billionaire Elon Musk believes that there needs to be government regulation on AI development “before it is too late.” He also said that AI poses “fundamental risk to the existence of civilization.” Facebook CEO and tech billionaire Mark Zuckerberg disagreed, calling these remarks “in some ways pretty irresponsible.” Zuckerberg also said that AI will bring “so many improvements in the quality of our lives.”

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These disagreements between two extremely successful technology businessmen has served to fuel uncertainty surrounding the field of AI development. However, it is reasonable to think that the most appropriate approach to artificial intelligence is to both understand the potential dangers as well as the benefits of the technology. Perhaps the arguments among experts will lead us to make a cautious step forward in this new era.