With artificial intelligence rarely out of the headlines over the past year, Honor Powrie reflects on how the good side of this apparently limitless technology can outweigh the bad or the ugly

Angel or demon? Artificial intelligence, especially of the generative variety, has good, bad and ugly sides. (Courtesy: Shutterstock/Cagkan Sayin)"> Angel or demon? Artificial intelligence, especially of the generative variety, has good, bad and ugly sides. (Courtesy: Shutterstock/Cagkan Sayin)

I recently gave a keynote talk to high-flying executives and tech leaders entitled “How to tame the AI wild west”. As part of the preparation for my address – and in keeping with my wild-west theme – I thought I’d start by highlighting “the good, the bad and the ugly” of AI. But when I reviewed how AI had been portrayed in the media over the previous few months, I struggled to find much good being said about it.

There was certainly a lot of “bad” going on, with AI appearing to threaten people’s livelihoods.…