Robot takeover? Not quite. Here’s what AI doomsday would look like

Experts say the fallout from powerful AI will be less a nuclear bomb and more a creeping deterioration of society

Alarm over artificial intelligence has reached a fever pitch in recent months. Just this week, more than 300 industry leaders published a letter warning AI could lead to human extinction and should be considered with the seriousness of pandemics and nuclear war".

Terms like AI doomsday" conjure up sci-fi imagery of a robot takeover, but what does such a scenario actually look like? The reality, experts say, could be more drawn out and less cinematic - not a nuclear bomb but a creeping deterioration of the foundational areas of society.