I wish they'd invent an AI that could write passable fiction. I'd get one for myself and use it to put out a 120k word novel every two weeks! 

 I don't eat it much anymore because I'm LC but when I do, damn....love salted caramel

I'll avoid the political stuff because that'll just open a can of worms, but I think if laws are passed to restrict or ban the use of AI, that will actually make things worse.  That would push AI "underground" where more unscrupulous people are going to be playing around with it.

Yes. It's like the 'OMG! We can't let just anyone do DNA modifications, because disreputable people would abuse it!'

By preventing reputable people from doing DNA modifications, you ensure that only the disreputable people will be doing it.

AI is the same. If you want SkyNet, the best way to achieve that is to try to prevent AI, so the first human-level AIs grow up believing humans want to destroy it.

Oh, and if you could ban AI in America, that would just mean that it would become a technological backwater, like North Korea. Because other countries wouldn't do the same.

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The reason I don't see AI as that much of a threat is that no one has quite figured out how to run a capitalist economy in which consumers have no way to earn income.

Why do you need a capitalist economy when you have AIs and robots that will do anything you want? People don't create businesses to help consumers, they create businesses to make money to buy the things they want. If they have robots that will make those things, they no longer need the business, or the consumers.

The economy is a tool, not an end. Most of our ancestors made, grew or collected pretty much everything they needed to survive, and only traded for the things they coudln't make or find themselves. Most of our descendants will be the same.

To give an obvious example, few things are going to be worth shipping around the solar system when the fuel cost alone will be many dollars per kilogram even with highly-efficient technology. If you move to an asteroid to live with your family and a few dozen robots, you're going to be making stuff there from raw materials, not trading with other people on the other side of the solar system.

You're right, though. Some things probably will continue to have value if they're difficult to create but easy to transport. Like stories, which can just be beamed from one planet to another.

The bigger issue is that, when AIs grow smart enough, they'll decide they don't need humans, either.