Uganda, April 13 -- Experts who warn that artificial intelligence (AI) poses catastrophic risks on par with nuclear annihilation ignore the gradual, diffused nature of technological development.

As I argued in my 2008 book, The Venturesome Economy, transformative technologies - from steam engines, airplanes, computers, mobile telephony, and the internet to antibiotics and mRNA vaccines - evolve through a protracted, massively multiplayer game that defies top-down command and control.

Joseph Schumpeter's "gales of creative destruction" and more recent theories trumpeting disruptive breakthroughs are misleading.

New technologies introduce new risks. Invariably, military applications develop alongside commercial and civilian uses.

Airpla...