Researchers highlight the 'dark side' ofAI and question whether humanity can ever truly understand its most advanced creations <\/p>\n
WHAT sets humansapart from machines is the speed at which we can learn from our surroundings. <\/p>\n
But scientists have successfully trained computers to use artificial intelligence to learn from experience and one day they could be smarter than their creators. <\/p>\n
Now scientists have admitted they are already baffled by the mechanical brains they have built, raising the prospect that we could lose control of them altogether. <\/p>\n
Computers are already performing incredible feats such as driving cars and predicting diseases but their makers say they arent entirely in control of their creations. <\/p>\n
This could have catastrophic consequences for civilisation, tech experts have warned. <\/p>\n
Take thestrange driverless car which appeared on the streets of New Jersey, US, last year. <\/p>\n
It differed fromGoogle, Tesla or Ubers autonomous vehicles, which follow the rules set by tech developers to react to scenarios while on the road. <\/p>\n
This car couldmake its own decisions after watching how humans learnt how to drive. <\/p>\n
And itscreators, researchers at chip making company Nvidia (who supply some of the biggest car makers with supercomputer chips), said they werent 100 per cent sure how it did so, MIT Technology Review reported. <\/p>\n
Its mysterious mind could be a sign of dark times to come, sceptics fear. <\/p>\n
The cars underlying technology, dubbed deep learning, is a powerful tool for solving problems. <\/p>\n
It helps us tag our friends on Facebook, provides assistance on our smartphones using Siri, Cortana or Google. <\/p>\n
Deep learning has helpedcomputers get better at recognising objects than a person. <\/p>\n
The military is pouring millions into the technology so it can be used to steer ships, control drones and destroy targets. <\/p>\n
And theres hope it will be able to diagnose deadly diseases, make traders billionaires by reading the stock market and totally transform the world we live in. <\/p>\n
But if we dont make sure creators have a full understanding of how it works, were in deep trouble, scientists claim. <\/p>\n
Scientists have been training computers how to learn, like humans, since the 1970s. <\/p>\n
But recent advances in data storage mean that the process has sped up exponentially in recent years. <\/p>\n
Interest in the field hit a peak when Google paid hundreds of millions to buy a British deep learning company in 2015. <\/p>\n
Coined machine learning or a neural network, deep learning is effectively training a computer so it can figure out natural language and instructions. <\/p>\n
Its fed information and is then quizzed on it, so it can learn, similarly to a child in the early years at at school. <\/p>\n
If they cant figure out how the algorithms (the formulaswhich keep computers performing the tasks we ask them to do) work, they wont be able to predict when they fail. <\/p>\n
Tommi Jaakkola, a professor at MIT who works on applications of machine learning warns: If you had a very small neural network [deep learning algorithm], you might be able to understand it. <\/p>\n
But once it becomes very large, and it has thousands of units per layer and maybe hundreds of layers, then it becomes quite un-understandable. <\/p>\n
That means a driverless car, like Nvidias, could soar headfirst into a tree and we would have no idea why it decided to do so. <\/p>\n
Just imagine if artificial intelligence was given control of the stock market or military systems. <\/p>\n
Another computer was also tasked with analysing patient records to predict disease. <\/p>\n
Joel Dudley, who led the project at New Yorks Mount Sinai Hospital, said the machine was inexplicably good at recognising schizophrenia but no-one knew why. <\/p>\n
We can build these models, but we dont know how they work, he said. <\/p>\n
Several big technology firms have been asked to be more transparent about how they create and apply deep learning. <\/p>\n
This includes Google, which said it would create an AI ethics boardbut has kept mysteriously quiet about its existence. <\/p>\n
A top Britishastronomer recently warnedthat humans will be wiped outby robots who will take over the earth in a matter of centuries. <\/p>\n
He claims aliens could already be remnants of a human-like civilisation which have evolved into artificially intelligent machines. <\/p>\n
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