The real risks of artificial intelligence – BBC Future

Artificial intelligence is also being used to analyse vast amounts of molecular information looking for potential new drug candidates a process that would take humans too long to be worth doing. Indeed, machine learning could soon be indispensable to healthcare.

Artificial intelligence can also help us manage highly complex systems such as global shipping networks. For example, the system at the heart of the Port Botany container terminal in Sydney manages the movement of thousands of shipping containers in and out of the port, controlling a fleet of automated, driverless straddle-carriers in a completely human-free zone. Similarly, in the mining industry, optimisation engines are increasingly being used to plan and coordinate the movement of a resource, such as iron ore, from initial transport on huge driverless mine trucks, to the freight trains that take the ore to port.

AIs are at work wherever you look, in industries from finance to transportation, monitoring the share market for suspicious trading activity or assisting with ground and air traffic control. They even help to keep spam out of your inbox. And this is just the beginning for artificial intelligence. As the technology advances, so too does the number of applications.

SO WHATS THE PROBLEM?

Rather than worrying about a future AI takeover, the real risk is that we can put too much trust in the smart systems we are building. Recall that machine learning works by training software to spot patterns in data. Once trained, it is then put to work analysing fresh, unseen data. But when the computer spits out an answer, we are typically unable to see how it got there.

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The real risks of artificial intelligence - BBC Future