Of all the technologies that have created buzz over the last few years, by far the buzziest is what's known as artificial intelligence – AI for short.

It's buzzy because the chatbots and data crunchers it has produced have startled users with their human-like dialogues and test-taking skills, and also because its critics, and even some of its proponents, have raised the specter of devices that can take over human endeavours and threaten human existence.