[crpatino]

The issue is not "malevolent AI", the probability of producing an AI with "malevolent goals" by random chance is so much more unlikely than getting any AI at all that it's not even worth it to worry about that.

The problem is "any AI" whose goals are not positively aligned-with/respectul-of human society's values. In terms with Asimov's Lay of Robotics meme, the problem is not robots harming humans, but robots allowing humans to come to harm as a side effect of their actions. This is an important ethical issue that, IMHO, technologist in general are failing to address.

Unethical AIs are only a special case in the sense that they are believed to be able to cause much more chaos and destruction than spammers, patent trolls or high frequency trading firms.

[KineticLensman]

Personally think that the 'immediate' problem will be AI being used as assistants by unscrupulous humans. Imagine being targeted by semi-sentient ransomware.

Edit: typos

[e12e]

I was going to quip something about meta-data, drone-strikes and automated targeting... but then I realized that the most likely immediate threat to life from AI is probably in trading and logistic algorithms. As in efficient privatization of water resources, to the point where those too poor to be a "good" market have to go without, or the possible drastic results of errors in such algorithms (eg: job massive loss as a result of bankruptcy). And then there's AI augmented health insurance - mundane things that might ultimately take human life - and perhaps no one will even notice.