Google has just been awarded a patent that gives the company the ability to implement 'methods and systems for robot personality development'. In other words; create a robot army.
OK so perhaps robot army is a little strong. What the patent actually allows Google to do is design and build a robot that can download different personality traits from the cloud.
The robot could for example, adapt to different social situations by downloading a personality trait that has been best suited for that instance.
In another example the robot can learn from other robots, using location to work out which personalities work best in which locations. It would then download the most popular from a robot in that area, thus making it easier to integrate into its surroundings.
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Now while this sounds relatively terrifying the good news is that Google is, in all certainty, taking possession of the patent as a means of protection.
While the technology is some way off, as Elon Musk and others have pointed out, it's not actually as far away as we'd first thought.
With this patent in Google's hands, a likely explanation is that Google will use its ownership to prevent anyone else doing something potentially apocalyptic with artificial intelligence.