'Too early' to subject AI to regulation, warns Intel CEO Brian Krzanich

Krzanich takes more relaxed approach to the 'threat' of AI compared to Musk, Hawking and others

Intel CEO Brian Krzanich has warned that artificial intelligence is still in such early stages of development that it shouldn't be regulated.

Speaking on CNBC in the US, the Intel boss claimed that the technology is simply too "infant" to be pushed through regulatory bodies. Krzanich's intervention follows on from calls by other technology industry leaders urging regulation.

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, is one of the most prominent figures warning about the dangers posed by the technology. He says it could lead to World War III.

And English physicist Stephen Hawking believes that if AI is left unchecked, it could result in the end of human civilisation in the future.

"AI is only going to go into applications that we allow it to go into... it's in its infancy," he told CNBC in a TV interview at the Web Summit conference in Lisbon.

"It would be too early to do any kind of regulation today. What would you regulate around artificial intelligence today? We need to foster the innovation and allow it to grow. We are at the beginning stages of artificial intelligence."

He believes that AI isn't the massive existential threat that many have suggested, especially in terms of jobs. "Every time there has been a big shift in technology, go back to cars or airplanes, people thought the industries were going to die, people were going to be out of work," he said.

"What happened is it shifted and it actually augmented and allowed even more jobs, more opportunity, more commerce and so AI is going to do the same thing.

"It doesn't mean there are less skilled workers, it means they are able to focus and we're able to treat more people. We're able to serve more of mankind with the skills that we have."

Governments and organisations around the world are already developing laws to regulate AI and robotics. In February, the European Parliament drafted laws to ensure the technology doesn't get out of control

Ray Chohan, senior vice president of corporate strategy at PatSnap, said: "Government regulations can play a huge part in governing the decisions of companies' R&D investment.

"For example, artificial intelligence patents that concern ethics or morality saw a spike in 2014, a year in which the GDPR was being widely discussed in the EU, particularly around the ‘right to be forgotten'.

"As regulation like the GDPR comes into play, we are likely to continue to see an increase in innovation in this area, as new technologies are dreamed up to better deal with personal data in an ethical manner."