AI: to fear or not to fear. That is the question.

People are saying many things about artificial intelligence. Some think that it will change the world for the worse. Others believe that it will steal your job.

Few are going all out and saying that it will lead to the next World War. Maybe generating fear and exaggerating the realities of AI today and its future potential is the actual problem here.

If you read about technology, you’ve probably seen some of these headlines brought on by experts, futurists and media predictions about an impending AI apocalypse. These exclamations seem to grow increasingly dramatic by the day, until suddenly, you’d think the world is already over, thanks to AI technology that doesn’t exist yet.

Artificial intelligence creates intelligent machines because they are programmed to work, react, and understand language like humans. If you’ve ever used predictive search on Google, asked Siri about the weather, or requested that Alexa play your “getting ready” playlist, then congratulations, you’ve used AI.

AI presents a genuine opportunity for both businesses and individuals. The technology powers enterprise and consumer platforms, apps, and interfaces that make life easier, businesses more efficient, and everything more informed, thanks to troves of data.

Adopting technologies like artificial intelligence can make your business more productive by reducing the time spent on basic administrative tasks.

The use of AI and bots directly translates to less time spent on routine administrative tasks internally and happier customers externally for businesses and startups. Adopting AI can be cost-effective, complementary to customer engagement and applicable in closing talent gaps. More good news: you don’t need to become an AI expert to reap these rewards. There are several excellent AI-based tools, such as personal assistants and legal robots, available on the market. And if businesses want to take the reins of actually developing AI-powered technologies, there are tools on the market that can make building a basic chatbot easy.

If we fear AI only because it may potentially steal a few repetitive and low-skilled jobs or because we think it would take over the world, maybe we’re missing the point. Perhaps the most severe risk associated with AI is that we fail to recognise the technology for what it truly is: an opportunity.