STORY HIGHLIGHTS

Editor's note: Greg Scoblete is the technology editor of PDN Magazine. Follow him on @GregScoblete. The views expressed are his own. For more on the future of technology, watch the upcoming GPS "Moonshots" special on December 28 at 10 a.m. and 1 p.m. ET.

(CNN) -- Imagine you're the kind of person who worries about a future when robots become smart enough to threaten the very existence of the human race. For years you've been dismissed as a crackpot, consigned to the same category of people who see Elvis lurking in their waffles.

Greg Scoblete

In 2014, you found yourself in good company.

This year, arguably the world's greatest living scientific mind, Stephen Hawking, and its leading techno-industrialist, Elon Musk, voiced their fears about the potentially lethal rise of artificial intelligence (AI). They were joined by philosophers, physicists and computer scientists, all of whom spoke out about the serious risks posed by the development of greater-than-human machine intelligence.

Imagining artificial intelligence

Imagining artificial intelligence

Imagining artificial intelligence

Imagining artificial intelligence

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