AI + IoT = Good or Bad?

According to this article, the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) with the Internet of Things (IoT) is inevitable, and there are prominent people such as Stephen Hawking, Bill Gates, and Elon Musk that warn against what may result by the combination. Fears range from the simple (putting employees out of work) to the extreme (Terminator SkyNet scenarios), but there are also people like Kevin Hally (founding editor of Wired magazine) who see the integration of IoT and AI to bring huge benefits to business (i.e. cutting costs by automating tasks) as long as they remain “consciousness-free”.

With over 50 billion devices expected to be connected to the internet by 2020 (more than 7 times the entire human population as of now), what do you think the implications will be if billions of embedded devices are eventually connected to artificially intelligent machines? Do you think AI is still too far in the distant future to even worry about? And, arguably as important, how can AI become a disruptive innovation unto itself? Do you agree with Kevin Hally that soon start up businesses will start basing their business plans on “cognitizing” what was previously “electrified”, with AI eventually becoming a commodity like electricity currently is?