HOW AI WILL CHANGE OUR WORLD

▶ Artificial Intelligence was a dominant theme at this week’s World Government Summit. Nick Webster and Caline Malek reveal how its impact will be felt sooner than you might think

The artificial intelligence age is upon us and the speed of technological development threatens to leave regulatory control in its wake.

Those concerns were among the key themes to emerge from the World Government Summit in Dubai this week.

Technology that was once considered science fiction is edging closer to reality.

How that is managed is a challenge for governments and policymakers and was a common topic of discussion during the three-day summit.

“I believe we are right at the start of this revolution ... and I imagine more natural ways of communication so it will become seamless,” said Carol Riley, president of Drive – AI. “This means non-verbal communication and machines starting to understand what we are thinking.”

Mind-reading robots may sound a terrifying prospect, but neuroscientists claim science has the potential to make life easier, and safer – as long as the technology is controlled and regulated properly.

Speech and face recognition to access mobile devices and bank accounts have become commonplace, as have home assistants like Amazon Echo’s Alexa and Google Home.

How this technology develops was a topic of discussion at the WGS involving the father of AI, Juergen Schmidhuber, chief scientist at NNaisense and co-director at Dalle Molle Institute for Artificial Intelligence Research. He has been working since the age of 15 to create a self-improved AI, smarter than himself.

“The next wave is going to be machines getting smart with built-in sensors,” the 55-year old said. “They can do all kinds of things that only people can do, so ‘show-and-tell’ robotics will come next, when you teach a robot like a child by showing it how it’s done.”

The rise of fake news is a problem blamed on increasing automation. Research-based predictions and trend analysis by Gartner forecast that by 2020, an AI-driven creation of a counterfeit reality, or fake content, will outpace AI’s ability to detect it.

Most of this fake reality will be delivered through social media platforms to our smartphones.

Big data has been the foundation of development for decades, with tech firms such as Google using that information to monitor human trends.

In education, teachers are being given new tools to get the best out of their students.

Google Classroom offers a universal online method of creating, distributing and grading assignments, while online tutorials help parents and schools learn how they can teach children to protect themselves online.

Technology was described as unstoppable by Sebastian Thrun, a German innovator. “It’s a very exciting time,” he said.

Behind the fears of runaway AI and science fiction fuelled all-conquering technology lies the potential to do great work that advances humanity.

On the right, The National looks at five concepts that promise great leaps forward for the UAE.