A computer science professor at Cornell University has a new twist on Marc Andreessen’s pronouncement that software is “eating the world.” According to Vitaly Shmatikov, it is “machine learning [that] is eating the world” today. His personification is clear: machine learning and other applications of artificial intelligence (“AI”) are disrupting society at a rate that shows little sign of leveling off. And with increasing numbers of companies and individual developers producing customer-facing AI systems, it seems all but inevitable that some of those systems will create unintended and unforeseen consequences, including harm to individuals and society at large.

Originally published in the January–February 2019 edition of RAIL: The Journal of Robotics, Artificial Intelligence & Law.