"The risks in developing superintelligence include the risk of failure to give it the supergoal of philanthropy. One way in which this could happen is that the creators of the superintelligence decide to build it so that it serves only this select group of humans, rather than humanity in general."

- Nick Bostrom, Ethical Issues in Advanced Artificial Intelligence, 1997

"It may seem rash to expect fully intelligent machines in a few decades, when the computers have barely matched insect mentality in a half-century of development. Indeed, for that reason, many long-time artificial intelligence researchers scoff at the suggestion, and offer a few centuries as a more believable period. But there are very good reasons why things will go much faster in the next fifty years than they have in the last fifty."

- Hans Moravec, When Will Computing Hardware Match the Human Brain?, 1997

"I do think the last four or five years have been extremely valuable in laying the foundation for where these solutions will come from, things like the advances in Bayesian modeling, combining those with other systems; some of these approaches I think hold promise to even get us to those very lofty goals, which founded this entire field."

- Bill Gates, International Joint Conference on Artificial Intelligence, 2001

"Another challenge your generation will face is one that I am relatively certain that you haven't heard of. It is the challenge to our species of creating new "life forms" with either the intelligence to be our masters, or the docility and
modest intelligence to be our servants."
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- Brad Sherman, Address to the Graduates of the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences, 2002

(See additional quotes here.)