Tech Giants Team Up to Keep AI From Getting Out of Hand

Let’s face it: artificial intelligence is scary. After decades of dystopian science fiction novels and movies where sentient machines end up turning on humanity, we can’t help but worry as real world AI continues to improve at such a rapid rate. Sure, that danger is probably decades away if it’s even a real danger at all. But there are many more immediate concerns. Will automated robots cost us jobs? Will online face recognition destroy our privacy? Will self-driving cars mess with moral decision making?

The good news is that many of the tech giants behind the new wave of AI are well aware that it scares people—and that these fears must be addressed. That’s why Amazon, Facebook, Google’s DeepMind division, IBM, and Microsoft have founded a new organization called the Partnership on Artificial Intelligence to Benefit People and Society.

“Every new technology brings transformation, and transformation sometimes also causes fear in people who don’t understand the transformation,” Facebook’s director of AI Yann LeCun said this morning during a press briefing dedicated to the new project. “One of the purposes of this group is really to explain and communicate the capabilities of AI, specifically the dangers and the basic ethical questions.”