An “AI Apocalypse”? 
Still others see more concern than promise. The international organization “Campaign to Stop Killer Robots”—which would have sounded comical and ludicrous only a few years ago—has focused since early 2013 on attempting to ban “lethal autonomous weapons systems” before they come into broad acceptance and use. As the organization declares on its Web site, “Giving machines the power to decide who lives and dies on the battlefield is an unacceptable application of technology. Human control of any combat robot is essential to ensuring both humanitarian protection and effective legal control.”
Even famed physicist Stephen Hawking has weighed in on the debate. In December 2014, he told a British Broadcasting Corporation interviewer, “The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race. It would take off on its own, and re-design itself at an ever-increasing rate… Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn’t compete, and would be superseded” (December 2, 2014).
Oxford University’s Global Challenges Foundation considered the threat serious enough that artificial intelligence received mention in its February 2015 headline-making report, 12 Risks that Threaten Human Civilisation. The Foundation noted that the rise of “super-intelligent” AI systems could cause economic or civilizational collapse and even bring about the extinction of humanity.
So, will the human race descend into a nightmare scenario where our species is eradicated and replaced by super-intelligent, mechanical creations of our own design? Are we doomed to face destruction at the hands of robot overlords?