The open letter was reported by media around the world in a way that made us grateful that we’d barred journalists from our conference. Although the most alarmist word in the letter was “pitfalls,” it nonetheless triggered headlines such as “Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking Sign Open Letter in Hopes of Preventing Robot Uprising,” illustrated by murderous terminators. Of the hundreds of articles we spotted, our favorite was one mocking the others, writing that “a headline that conjures visions of skeletal androids stomping human skulls underfoot turns complex, transformative technology into a
...more
