The Final Frontiers of Artificial Intelligence

The Final Frontiers of Artificial Intelligence

In an age in which AI is becoming increasingly prevalent, how will future AI developments affect the interactions with humans and what could it mean for machines themselves and their potential rights?

While AI today might run on a spectrum from Robot Process Automation through to deep learning algorithms and neural networks, the future holds the possibility of an Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), able to flexibly apply learning from one field to another.

Under the Future Investment Initiative, Saudi Arabia bestowed citizenship upon a humanoid robot named Sophia, which is able to hold basic conversations. Others, meanwhile have called for robots to be made accountable for tax and for companies to be held responsible for damage caused by machines – recognising robots as actors rather than simply as tools. AI experts have countered, however, that such moves are “nonsensical” and would work to undercut human rights.

The birth of AGI might well coincide with ‘the Singularity’: the creation of a true intelligence, able to improve itself and hence achieve exponential advances. Ray Kurzweil posits that the Singularity will occur in 2045; while Dr David Hanson argues that machines will be granted human rights in the same year. Elon Musk, meanwhile, has said that he believes the prospect of digital superintelligence is a certainty within his lifetime. He believes, however, that it may pose a major threat to humanity.