AI: The next new frontier?

As a child of the ’80s growing up during the popularity of the two “Terminator” movies — stories built around the dystopian theme that learning machines become self-aware and start a war to exterminate humans — the idea of artificial intelligence is a bit unsettling. 

I know I’m not in the minority here. The spectrum of fear surrounding AI ranges from general uneasiness with having computers specifically programmed to emulate human beings to doomsday scenarios of all of us losing our jobs and becoming enslaved to our computer overlords. 

I don’t know what the future of AI looks like. And, from a two-day summit I attended this past week on AI, Ethics and Journalism put together by the Poynter Institute and hosted by the Associated Press in New York City, I can confidently say: No one else does, either.