The quick growth of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is undeniably surprising (and even quite scary): renowned American IT multinational IBM has revealed its newest development called Project Debater, a robot that is able to debate with scientists about the pros and cons of Artificial Intelligence.

A recent article published on science magazine New Scientist states that Project Debater “spoke on both sides of the argument, with two human teammates for each side helping it out”. Also, the robot “gave each side’s opening statements, using arguments drawn from more than 1100 human submissions made ahead of time”.

When asked if AI could be dangerous for humans, Project Debater expressed that “AI can cause a lot of harm”, since it is capable of making decisions according to moral values. “AI will not be able to make a decision that is the morally correct one, because morality is unique to humans”, it said.

“AI companies still have too little expertise on how to properly assess datasets and filter out bias”, it expressed. “AI will take human bias and will fixate it for generations”, it predicted.

New Scientist explained that the machine processed the opinions of thousands of people sent via online to develop a coherent argument. “Project Debater then sorted these into key themes, as well as identifying redundancy – submissions making the same point using different words”, the article said.

“Project Debater argued with humans for the first time last year, and in February this year lost in a one-on-one against champion debater Harish Natarajan, who also spoke at Cambridge as the third speaker for the team arguing in favour of AI”, the report mentions. “IBM has plans to use the speech-by-crowd AI as a tool for collecting feedback from large numbers of people. For instance, it could be used by governments seeking public opinions about policies or by companies wanting input from employees, said IBM engineer Noam Slonim”, it continues.

Draw your own conclusions…

For more information: https://www.newscientist.com/article/2224585-robot-debates-humans-about-the-dangers-of-artificial-intelligence/