A scientific think tank that champions the development of artificial intelligence is calling for more research to avoid "potential pitfalls" of the technology.

In an open letter on its website, the Future of Life Institute (FLI)—an initiative of scientists and engineers operating under the auspices of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology—said the development of sentient machines has huge potential benefits.

Meanwhile, high profile figures such as Tesla founder Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking have issued emphatic warnings against AI, calling the technology a potential menace that could extinguish human life.

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In its open letter, however, the FLI tacitly bowed to those concerns.

Although the organization insisted that AI could potentially "eradicate disease and poverty," it called for wide ranging inquiry into how the technology gets developed in order to "maximize its societal benefits" without effectuating some of the worst case scenarios proposed by its opponents.

"We recommend expanded research aimed at ensuring that increasingly capable AI systems are robust and beneficial: our AI systems must do what we want them to do," the FLI wrote on its website.