Artificial Intelligence: When Humans Coexist with Robots
Despite fears of a machine takeover, brainpower will still be necessary. Such ‘hybrid systems’ require careful design
By Richard Waters
The human race is not on the scrapheap after all. Or at least not yet. There has been no shortage of predictions in recent years about how advances in artificial intelligence and robotics will see humans replaced in all kinds of jobs.
But most AI experts see a less drastic outcome. In this version of the future, people will still have a role working alongside smart systems: either the technology will not be good enough to take over completely, or the decisions will have human consequences that are too important to hand over completely to a machine.
This hybrid decision-making should produce better results than either working alone, according to David Mindell, a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and author of Our Robots, Ourselves. There’s just one problem: when humans and semi-intelligent systems try to work together, things do not always turn out well.
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