  In 1950, Alan Turing proposed an imitation game as the ultimate test of
whether a machine was intelligent: could a machine imitate a human so well that
its answers to questions indistinguishable from a human. Ever since, creating
intelligence that matches human intelligence has implicitly or explicitly been
the goal of thousands of researchers, engineers, and entrepreneurs. The
benefits of human-like artificial intelligence (HLAI) include soaring
productivity, increased leisure, and perhaps most profoundly, a better
understanding of our own minds.
  But not all types of AI are human-like. In fact, many of the most powerful
systems are very different from humans. So an excessive focus on developing and
deploying HLAI can lead us into a trap. As machines become better substitutes
for human labor, workers lose economic and political bargaining power and
become increasingly dependent on those who control the technology. In contrast,
when AI is focused on augmenting humans rather than mimicking them, then humans
retain the power to insist on a share of the value created. Furthermore,
augmentation creates new capabilities and new products and services, ultimately
generating far more value than merely human-like AI. While both types of AI can
be enormously beneficial, there are currently excess incentives for automation
rather than augmentation among technologists, business executives, and
policymakers.
