Skip to main content current edition: International edition The Guardian - Back to home Become a supporter Subscribe Find a job Jobs Sign in Search Show More Close with google sign in become a supporter subscribe search find a job dating more from the guardian: change edition: edition International edition The Guardian - Back to home browse all sections close Artificial intelligence (AI) The rise of robots: forget evil AI – the real risk is far more insidious It’s far more likely that robots would inadvertently harm or frustrate humans while carrying out our orders than they would rise up against us Stuart Russell: ‘The risk doesn’t come from machines suddenly developing spontaneous malevolent consciousness.
’ developing spontaneous malevolent consciousness.
’ Photograph: Alamy Artificial intelligence (AI) The rise of robots: forget evil AI – the real risk is far more insidious It’s far more likely that robots would inadvertently harm or frustrate humans while carrying out our orders than they would rise up against us Olivia Solon in San Francisco @oliviasolon email Tue 30 Aug ‘16 14.
00 BST Last modified on Fri 14 Jul ‘17 19.
48 BST This article is 1 year old When we look at the rise of artificial intelligence, it’s easy to get carried away with dystopian visions of sentient machines that rebel against their human creators.
 Fictional baddies such as the Terminator’s Skynet or Hal from 2001: A Space Odyssey have a lot to answer for.
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 In recognition of this, the University of California, Berkeley has this week launched a center to focus on building people-pleasing AIs.
 The Center for Human-Compatible Artificial Intelligence, launched this week with $5.
5m in funding from the Open Philanthropy Project, is lead by computer science professor and artificial intelligence pioneer Stuart Russell.
 He’s quick to dispel any “unreasonable and melodramatic” comparisons to the threats posed in science fiction.
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 “It’s important that we’re not trying to prevent that from happening because there’s absolutely no understanding of consciousness whatsoever.
” Russell is well known in the artificial intelligence community and in 2015 penned an open letter calling for researchers to look beyond the goal of simply making AI more capable and powerful to think about maximizing its social benefit.
 The letter has been signed by more than 8,000 scientists and entrepreneurs including physicist Stephen Hawking, entrepreneur Elon Musk and Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak.