‘Future of AI will be like the Borg from Star Trek’

Different artificial intelligence units will one day be able to team up and share information with each other – just like the Borg in Star Trek, according to leading computer experts.

Scientists from the universities of Loughborough, Yale and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have said humanity is set to see the emergence of “Collective AI”, where a hive-mind of different units – each capable of continuously learning and gaining new skills – form a network to share information.But the researchers added that unlike the antagonists from the Star Trek franchise or the villainous Replicators – who are a highly advanced machine race in the scifi series Stargate SG-1, they expect the impact of Collective AI to be more positive.

Research lead Dr Andrea Soltoggio, of Loughborough University, said: “In this new collective of AI systems, when one unit learns something new, it can share the knowledge with all the other units, which bears a striking resemblance with the capabilities of sci-fi characters, including the Borg from Star Trek or the Replicators from Stargate SG-1.

“This ability makes a collective very resilient and responsive to new environments, problems or threats, as every new bit of information can be shared and becomes part of the collective knowledge.

“The potential applications are vast and exciting.”

However, the experts acknowledge there may also be certain risks associated with Collective AI – such as the rapid spread of information that could potentially be “unethical or illicit”.

But they added that AI units could stay safe by maintaining their own objectives and independence from the collective, resulting in what Dr Soltoggio describes as “a democracy of AI agents, significantly reducing the risks of an AI domination by few large systems”.