AI – our unnecessary angst?

If you’ve seen Mission Impossible: Dead Reckoning, you’ll know the hunt is on for the key to a powerful sentient AI entity – a villainous entity that threatens to unleash god-like omnipotence over the entire world.

It’s a timely movie, illustrating the potential (if fictional) power of artificial intelligence; it’s prescience wasn’t lost on me (I watched it the same night I’d finished the first part of this article).

Paul Ewart, chairman of Christians in Science, comments: ‘There’s a saying: “When science makes a discovery, the devil grabs it while the angels are debating the best way to use it!” There is a lot of concern at present about the dangers of AI. There is also a lot of unnecessary angst, misinformation and misunderstanding.’