EDITOR’S LETTER

Can you imagine living in a world run by smart machines? Well, you already do. Every time you tap out a text or snap a picture on a smartphone or ask Alexa a question, artificial intelligence (AI) systems are humming and whirring behind the scenes. It can be spooky. Apps are great at guessing which music I like or what TV shows I might enjoy watching. Turn to page 12 to find out how do they do this, and much more besides.

This changing world can seem a bit frightening, too. Humans do this funny thing with new technology, where they are both excited and scared at the same time. One the one hand, people say smart machines will save the world, and on the other hand they say robots will turn us all into paperclips. There’s no need to worry, though – as computer scientist Janelle Shane points out, although many systems are ultrasmart at doing one thing, they often fall over when asked to do things that humans would find simple.

In Shane’s vision, smart machines are kind of goofy and cute. They make up bizarre new ice cream flavours, like “bug” (yummy), “mango cats” (erm) and “peanut butter slime” (ew), and fail totally when it comes to understanding jokes. Conversations with them go quickly off the rails, and AIS that are trained to identify animals in photos see giraffes everywhere – even when they are not there.

What we teach these machines also reveals our in-built biases and blind spots. Artificial intelligence is no excuse for natural stupidity and we need to work hard to make sure that computers connect people and don’t divide us.

Perhaps the answer is kindness. Teenage inventor Gitanjali Rao is leading the way with her app that helps prevent cyberbullying (see page 36). She brings us a hopeful and inspiring message that young people have the power to change the world.