Google's New A.I. Ethics Board Might Save Humanity From Extinctionn; HuffingtonPost.com, 1/29/14

Bianca Bosker, HuffingtonPost.com; Google's New A.I. Ethics Board Might Save Humanity From Extinction:

"In 2011, the co-founder of DeepMind, the artificial intelligence company acquired this week by Google, made an ominous prediction more befitting a ranting survivalist than an award-winning computer scientist.

“Eventually, I think human extinction will probably occur, and technology will likely play a part in this,” DeepMind’s Shane Legg said in an interview with Alexander Kruel. Among all forms of technology that could wipe out the human species, he singled out artificial intelligence, or AI, as the “number 1 risk for this century.”

Google’s acquisition of DeepMind came with an estimated $400 million price tag and an unusual stipulation that adds extra gravity -- and a dose of reality -- to Legg’s warning: Google agreed to create an AI safety and ethics review board to ensure this technology is developed safely, as The Information first reported and The Huffington Post confirmed...

Before we get there, ethicists, AI researchers and computer scientists argue Google’s soon-to-be-created ethics board must consider both the moral implications of the AI projects it pursues, and draw up the ethical rules by which its smart systems operate."