Artificial intelligence (AI) has come a long way since the term was coined by Professor John McCarthy at the famous Dartmouth conference in 1956. Ardent work by scientists and engineers, combined with unprecedented technological evolution, has started spawning many applications of practical importance. The objective of AI is to identify problems and then create an appropriate algorithm to solve them. AI keeps learning from big data, as a raw material, for decision making, now that it is abundantly available, thanks to digitization of every aspect of our lives. However, there has been a large debate around the ethical harvesting, preserving privacy while analyzing big data, secure and safe systems that protect human dignity are some of the questions that need to be answered, and if required regulated. Specifically, we will try to address the following questions: How does machine intelligence positively and negatively affect individuals and societies? What should be the basic characteristics of autonomous systems? Should they be regulated? If so how?