The four big risks from artificial intelligence

Throughout history, technological breakthroughs have created new opportunities for invention, adaptation and progress while inflicting irreversible damage on many lives and livelihoods. They have tested the remarkable abilities of human beings and societies to adapt to the turmoil of transition and to survive what economists call "creative destruction."

The world must now prepare for a technological breakthrough whose implications are vast and which are unfolding at a speed that has frightened even the men and women who have spent their working lives preparing the ground for this upheaval. Artificial intelligence will transform our lives - for better and for worse - so thoroughly and so quickly that we have no choice but to prepare ourselves and one another for the fallout.

Without question, there will be medical and scientific breakthroughs that transform the labor...