Checkmate humanity: In four hours, a robot taught itself chess, then beat a grandmaster and the implications are terrifying

Will robots one day destroy us? It’s a question that increasingly preoccupies our scientists and tech entrepreneurs. For developments in artificial intelligence (AI) — machines programmed to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence — are poised to reshape our workplace and leisure time dramatically.

This year, a leading Oxford academic, Professor Michael Wooldridge, warned MPs that AI could go ‘rogue’, that machines might become so complex that the engineers who create them will no longer understand them or be able to predict how they function. Yes, it’s a concern, but a ‘historic’ new development makes unpredictable decisions by AI machines the least of our worries. And it all started with a game of chess.

AlphaZero, an AI computer programme, this month proved itself to be the world’s greatest ever chess champion, thrashing a previous title-holder, another AI system called Stockfish 8, in a 100-game marathon. But what’s so frighteningly clever about AlphaZero is that it taught itself chess in just four hours. It was simply given the rules and instructed to learn how to win by playing against itself. In doing so, it assimilated hundreds of years of chess knowledge and tactics — then went on to surpass all previous human invention in the game.

The programme not only taught itself how to play but developed tactics that are unbeatably innovative — and revealed its startling ability to trounce human intelligence. Some of its winning moves had never been recorded in the 1,500 years that human brains have pitted wits across the chequered board.

The wider implications are chilling. AlphaZero was the brainchild of a UK company called DeepMind, which develops computer programmes that learn for themselves. It was bought by Google in 2014. The complex piece of programming that created AlphaZero can be described as an algorithm. The more data that an AI such as AlphaZero processes, the more it teaches itself. Its problem-solving powers become stronger all the time, multiplying its intelligence at speeds and scales far beyond the abilities of a human brain. But the real purpose of such artificial intelligence goes far beyond playing board games. It is already starting to make lifeor-death decisions in the high-tech world of cancer diagnosis.

It is being trialled at hospitals in London, where a system is being developed in which an AI developed by DeepMind will analyse scans of patients with cancers. Google experts say the AI should be able to teach itself to read these scans quicker and more accurately than any human, so radiation can be precisely targeted at tumours. What currently takes doctors and radiologists four hours could be done in less than an hour.

On the surface, it looks like a winwin. But there are issues. The first is privacy — the hospital trials have involved handing over the scans of more than a million patients to Google. This is causing alarm among privacy campaigners.

The second — in building a machine that may revolutionise healthcare, we have created a system that can out-think us. We must ensure that we stay in charge — or it may be checkmate for humanity. (© Daily Mail, London)