No expert consensus on AI risks, trajectory 'remarkably uncertain': report

A major international report on the safety of artificial intelligence says experts can’t agree on the risk the technology poses — and it's unclear whether AI will help or harm us.

A major international report on the safety of artificial intelligence says experts can’t agree on the risk the technology poses — and it’s unclear whether AI will help or harm us.

The report, chaired by Canada’s Yoshua Bengio, concludes the "future trajectory of general-purpose AI is remarkably uncertain."

It says a "wide range of trajectories" are possible "even in the near future, including both very positive and very negative outcomes."

The report was commissioned at last year’s AI Safety Summit hosted by the United Kingdom, the first such global meeting on artificial intelligence.

The U.K. asked Bengio, dubbed a "godfather" of AI and who is scientific director at Mila, the Quebec AI Institute, to chair the report. It was released ahead of another global summit on AI, to be held in Seoul, South Korea, next week.

"We know that advanced AI is developing very rapidly, and that there is considerable uncertainty over how these advanced AI systems might affect how we live and work in the future," Bengio wrote in the report.

The U.K. government said in a press release Friday the report is the "first-ever independent, international scientific report" on AI safety, and that it would "play a substantial role" in informing the discussions in South Korea next week.