Views on artificial intelligence

From Pamela McCorduck, writing in Edge: "For more than 50 years, I've watched the ebb and flow of public opinion about artificial intelligence: it's impossible and can't be done; it's horrendous, and will destroy the human race; it's significant … . These extremes have lately given way to an acknowledgment that AI is an epochal scientific, technological, and social — human — event. We've developed a new mind, to live side by side with ours. If we handle it wisely, it can bring immense benefits, from the planetary to the personal."