Robot Armageddon? ‘Demon’ machines on verge of conquering ‘hallmark of human intelligence’

The study confirmed that robots are able to overcome the Captcha system used by websites where a series of letters and numbers are placed on-screen as the last line of defence to confirm a human is using the system – the work was conducted by artificial intelligence (AI) company Vicarious.

The researchers said: “The ability to learn and generalise from a few examples is a hallmark of human intelligence.”

They also stated that “websites should move to more robust mechanisms for blocking bots”.

The new paper, published in Science, claims that algorithms could successfully guess a Captcha code 66 per cent of the time and an individual character at 95 per cent.

On average, only 86 per cent of humans agree on a Captcha code if they are presented with the same one.

Previously the Captcha code has been successful in preventing breaches from AI due to the high segmentation resistance needed, meaning the ability to differentiate where one symbol begins and ends.

The high levels of determination needed are exacerbated when a code is placed on top of a coloured background.

American professor Douglas Hofstadter had previously discussed the challenges associated with creating a system able to differentiate between individual characters online.

He stated: “For any program to handle letterforms with the flexibility that human beings do, it would have to possess full-scale artificial intelligence.”

The system used by the team of researchers comes after both the greatest chess and Go players have fallen to AI.

Earlier this year, Google’s AlphaGo system beat Ke Jie, a player widely renowned as the best in the world.

The year prior, the talented AI system had dispatched the Korean maestro Lee Se-dol at the complex game.

Tech giant Elon Musk has previously commented that the advances made by AI recently are equivalent to “summoning the demon”.

He claimed: “I think we should be very careful about artificial intelligence. If I had to guess at what our biggest existential threat is, it’s probably that.

“So we need to be very careful with artificial intelligence.

“I’m increasingly inclined to think that there should be some regulatory oversight, maybe at the national and international level, just to make sure that we don’t do something very foolish.

“With artificial intelligence we’re summoning the demon.”