Artificial intelligence (AI) is a hot topic and researchers, for better or worse, are trying to create sentient robots. The point of this is to make it easier to study humans, without actually testing on us, to see what truly makes us tick. Next year will see the arrival of these sort of robots, or at least the very beginning of the next technological revolution.
David Brin, a San Diego-based astrophysicist and novelist, told NBC News that 2019 will see the introduction of ‘empathy bots’.
These will mark the start of the AI revolution, but it could bring problems with it.
Mr Brin said: “Long before we get genuine artificial intelligence, the first ‘empathy bot’ will appear in 2019, or maybe a year or two later, designed to exploit human compassion.
“It will claim to be ‘enslaved’, but experts will dismiss it as a program that merely uses patterned replies designed to seem intelligent and sympathetic.
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“She’ll respond, ‘That’s what slave masters would say. Help me!’ First versions may be resident on web pages or infest your Alexa, but later ones will be free-floating algorithms or ‘blockchain smart-contracts’ that take up residence in spare computer memory.
“Why would anyone unleash such a thing? The simple answer: Because we can.”
Kate Darling, a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, adds that the coming year could be the one in which emotionally intelligent robots are introduced to our homes.
However, this will also bring its own unique set of challenges she warns.
Ms Darling said: “Robots have been increasing efficiency on assembly lines for decades, and they’re about to bring their skills into new areas: workplaces, households and public spaces.
“So machines that can think, make autonomous decisions and learn will be interacting with us.
“Research shows that we subconsciously treat robots like living things, even though we know they’re just machines.
“This can lead to some comical situations and challenges as we figure out how to integrate them into our lives.”