Myth: “We will never create AI with human-like intelligence.”

Reality: We already have computers that match or exceed human capacities in games like chess and Go, stock market trading, and conversations. Computers and the algorithms that drive them can only get better, and it’ll only be a matter of time before they excel at nearly any human activity.

NYU research psychologist Gary Marcus has said that “virtually everyone” who works in AI believes that machines will eventually overtake us: “The only real difference between enthusiasts and skeptics is a time frame.” Futurists like Ray Kurzweil think it could happen within a couple of decades, while others say it could take centuries.

AI skeptics are unconvincing when they say it’s an unsolvable technological problem, and that there’s something intrinsically unique about biological brains. Our brains are biological machines, but they’re machines nonetheless; they exist in the real world and adhere to the basic laws of physics. There’s nothing unknowable about them.