Short answers, pulled from the story.
The global artificial intelligence industry grew from a few million dollars in 1980 to billions of dollars by 1988. This financial expansion marked the beginning of widespread adoption across sectors like medical diagnosing and public administration procedures.
On the 18th of March 2018, a pedestrian was struck and killed in Tempe, Arizona by an Uber self-driving car. This incident highlighted obstacles to widespread adoption of autonomous vehicles despite expanded legislation allowing their use.
Scientists including Stephen Hawking believe superhuman artificial intelligence is physically possible since no physical law precludes particles from being organized to perform advanced computations. A computer program emulating a human brain could become a speed superintelligence due to silicon construction versus flesh-based biology.
In January 2015, Nick Bostrom joined Stephen Hawking, Max Tegmark, Elon Musk, Lord Martin Rees, Jaan Tallinn, and numerous researchers in signing the Future of Life Institute's open letter. The signatories believed research on making AI systems robust and beneficial was both important and timely.
Karel Čapek introduced the word robot in his 1920 play R.U.R. The play was a protest against rapid technology growth featuring manufactured robots who eventually revolted.