There is no need to fear artificial intelligence, yet

The fear of artificial intelligence (AI) is not new. The first time that the world worried that a human-made, and yet superior-to-humans intelligence, has been created and had the capacity to destroy the world was in 1946, when the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Calculator (ENIAC) was built. It was a precursor to computers and could complete in 30 seconds calculations that would take a human being 20 hours. At that time, press coverage on the ENIAC was as alarmist as it has been in the past few years on AI. Some reports called it a mathematical Frankenstein, even a controller of weather. It was, as we well know, none of those things.

The hype around AI now is similar. Articles foretelling the end of times where some form of AI has made yet another human profession obsolete are popular reading. It’s a fascinating thought that humans can create machines that can think and make decisions like us. From this, it’s a small jump to their learning to think like humans.