The Guardian

If tech experts worry about artificial intelligence, shouldn’t you as well? | John Naughton

A recent study of 1,000 leaders in the technology sector found more fear than hope about the continuing growth of AI
Douglas Engelbart, a pioneer of the human-computer interface, with his prototype wooden mouse. Photograph: Zuma/Alamy

Fifty years ago last Sunday, a computer engineer named Douglas Engelbart gave a live demonstration in San Francisco that changed the computer industry and, indirectly, the world. In the auditorium, several hundred entranced geeks watched as he used something called a “mouse” and a special keypad to manipulate structured documents and showed how people in different physical locations could work collaboratively on shared files, online.

It was, said Steven Levy, a tech historian who was present, “the mother of all demos”. “As windows open and shut and

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