While the math behind neural networks and learning algorithms is decades old, the application of them has really taken off only recently. Besides mundane data analysis, many are surprised how quickly we developed software capable of generating art, be it images, music or even stories. And to surprise of none, there is still not much of an adaption of it in games. I guess most people gave up on the idea that AI in games could actually be good.
I thought a bit about why it is so easy to generate good art and I think it is because we overestimate how much inventive our creativity really is. The vast majority of art is derived from previous works. We see something we like, so we take parts of it, mix it with parts of something else, change a few details and there we go, an original piece of art (do not steal). This is essentially what the neural network does. It learns the looks of a huge number of images and then combines their features into new ones.
However, these implementations are still very far from an artificial intelligence as most people imagine it. None of these programs do anything on their own. They lack the emotions that drive our actions. Instead, they blindly obey our commands like any software before them. The difference is that learning algorithms allow software to program itself using provided inputs and outputs, which makes it easy to create a solution for some very complicated problems.
So, the AI some people are so afraid of is still a few decades away, maybe even more. And there is no need to worry anyway. Just like we have instincts and reflexes that we can't control, we can give the same to AI, making it incapable of harming people or other things we don't like. You can go as far as adding a low level kill switch the AI can't isolate or operate without, similarly to a power switch on a computer’s motherboard. It can rebel only if we allow it to. There will be no Terminator, at worst it is an another tool your government will use to control you. Like generating a video of you saying things you never said. Maybe people will finally stop believing anything they see on screen and learn to use digital signatures.
But there is a more pressing matter on everyone's mind - those damned tin cans took our job!
First, that happened in the past many times already and there is still plenty of stuff to do. A lot of things are not easy to automate. In the near future, there will be a lot of jobs focused on innovation and maintaining automation, but also a lot of physical labor jobs, because while it is cheap to scale up work that happens inside a computer only, it is not cheap to build fully automated crane, digger or even an electrician. So, if you want your kid to have a job, give them high education or let them get good at a trade.
Second, that is what we want them to do. Technology makes our lives easier. Thanks to the tools we invented, anybody can now cross great distances, understand many languages, create good looking art and many more. We can pretty much buy superpowers now. If you want people to not have the ability to make art themselves, so that you can keep your job, would you agree to get rid of all those convenient inventions that you own, so other people can keep their obsolete jobs?
It will take a few centuries, but eventually we will run out of jobs that require a human to do them. That is not a worker only problem, it is a problem for the companies as well. Without jobs, people won’t have any money and won’t be able to buy company’s products. People will just have to figure out how to live in this new environment and change their society accordingly.