IBM Watson, Google’s driverless cars and “unbeatable” Atari gaming system, and unusual 3D printing jobs drive the visibility of artificial intelligence or “AI” systems right now.

With billions of dollars of ongoing investment in AI, everyone seems to want a piece of the action.

However, asks Dr. Steve Omohudro at a VLAB event in Menlo Park earlier this month, will AI be an asset or menace to society when it becomes more prevalent?

AI will have a tremendous impact on the future, he says. Also referred to as “deep learning,” it is expected to drive $50 trillion in revenue by 2015.

Furthermore, IBM officials say they invested $1 billion in Watson, which Big Blue defines as a cognitive system enabling a new partnership between people and computers.

Hundreds of start-ups jumped into the AI arena and it’s expected to do no less than “improve the world.” Omohundro cited Google’s self-driving cars as a high profile example of AI. Driverless vehicles are expected to become a $10 trillion industry by 2025; even Apple Computer has invested in them.

Omohundro asked the audience to just imagine the impact that this and other implications of AI will have on society.

“Most cars sit in the parking lot all day not getting used,” says Omohundro. If and when driverless cars replace today’s models, “We’ll only need 1% of the vehicles we use today.”

[Note: Projected revenue figures, with the exception of the Watson figure, cited are from McKinsey and Company reports. The photo of Steve Omohundro came from his LinkedIn page. The photo of the Google car came from the Michigan Auto Law website.]

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This story was written by Michelle McIntyre, president of MMC PR, a member of VLAB’s marketing team, an SV-IABC board member and IBM vet. @FromMichelle