Artificial Intelligence

Reading Stuart Russell’s new book, ‘Human Compatible’, which ventures into the depths of superhuman machine intelligence, I was reminded of an earlier work of science fiction, which addressed humanity’s interface with non-human intelligence. John Wyndham’s ‘The Kraken Wakes’, a typical 1950s science fiction thriller, the global community is facing up to a threat from the seas, itself brought about by some form of non-human intelligence.  Early on in this encounter, a key scientific ‘outlier’ suggests that a profitable way to engage…

Many years ago, the political theorist Hannah Arendt, wrote a compelling account of the impact of modernity on the human race entitled ‘The Human Condition: A study of the Central Dilemmas Facing Modern Man.”  If nothing else, the book was prescient: it commented on the potentially negative impact of science and technology on both the individual and society and underlined the future problems associated with machine intelligence – then described as automation.  Indeed, Arendt dwelt on a central problem of a future…

by Nathaniel Hupert, MD MPH People who are either very lucky or very unlucky don’t have a doctor.  If you do have one, chances are she or he is intelligent, at a minimum in the sense of being competent at carrying out an integrated, purpose-driven set of deliberative functions aimed at maintaining or restoring your health. (If not, get a new one.)   The question facing advocates of the “AI Revolution” in medicine is whether it makes sense to trade in all or…

Discerning trends in Artificial Intelligence (AI) is never easy. Anyone familiar with predicting AI trends will know historically that there has been too many false dawns and especially in recent years, too much hype. What, therefore, might 2019 hold for us? Judging by the pattern of events over the past 12 months, I would submit that there will be one major trend and associated with it, a number of subsidiary directions. The major trend regarding AI development is the clear perception…

Not long after his death last year, Stephen Hawking’s final literary contribution was published under the title ‘BRIEF ANSWERS TO THE BIG QUESTIONS’. In chapter 9, he returned to a subject that had much vexed him in his later years, namely ‘Will artificial intelligence outsmart us?’ Hawking was known to harbour deep reservations about some aspects of artificial intelligence (AI), although it is also fair to say that he greatly welcomed the potential benefits to humanity that he and many commentators…