Editors note:Tim Oates is chief scientist at CircleBack. He holds a PhD in computer science with an emphasis in machine learning from UMass Amherst and is also Oros Family Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering at University of Maryland Baltimore County.

As yet another tech pioneer with no connection to artificial intelligence steps out to voice his fears about AI being catastrophic for the human race, I feel the need respond. While I respect Steve Wozniaks technological contributions to our culture, I fear that he, like so many others (Musk, Hawking, Gates), is poisoning the well for fear of something he doesnt truly understand.

Conflating facts of technologys rapid progress with a Hollywood understanding of intelligent machines is provocative (honestly, its a favorite in my most-loved science fiction books and movies), but this technology doesnt live in a Hollywood movie, it isnt HAL or Skynet, and it deserves a grounded, rational look.

For the sake of argument, lets assume that we have (or can plausibly) create a superhuman AI. Such an AI could, like us, think all kinds of things the humans created me and theyre really interesting or the humans bodily functions are mildly annoying or all humans must die! all of which are equally speculatively plausible. So why anyone gives the doomsday scenario any more weight than the others is a bit of a mystery to me.

It may be that, in a world filled with pop culture stories and polluted by a fear of tech, the doomsday story is the most entertaining, taking its spot next to UFO-created crop circles and the like. But the assumptions that this story-presented-as-an-idea rests on are unfounded and highly improbable.

Heres what youre supposed to believe about true AI:

Sound reasonable to you? Me either.

But for claritys sake, lets unpack these assumptions, starting with the notion that AI has a distinct I capable of stepping outside its intended programming. Even the quickest glance over the history of AI confirms theres a tradeoff between machine intelligence and adaptability.

Narrowly intelligent machines like Deep Blue and Watson can play chess or answer Jeopardy questions better than anyone alive while not being able to understand checkers or the Trivia Crack app. More general-intelligence machines, on the other hand, can learn to do many things but will ultimately do them all poorly.

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Stop Fearing Artificial Intelligence