The Machines are Coming: China’s role in the future of artificial intelligence
After a year of breakthroughs, experts believe they are on the brink of revolutionising our daily lives through artificial intelligence – and Asia can play a leading role in this brave new world
Try typing “the machines” into Google and chances are that one of the top results the artificial intelligence-powered search engine will return is the phrase: “The Machines are Coming”.
After a 2016 filled with high-profile advances in artificial intelligence (AI), leading technologists say this could be a breakout year in the development of intelligent machines that emulate humans.
Asia, until now lagging Silicon Valley in AI, will play a bigger role as the field cements itself at the pinnacle of the technology world in 2017, the experts say.
AI – technically, a computing field that involves the analysis of large troves of data to predict outcomes and patterns – is as old as modern computers but its esoteric nature means it has long endured caricatures of its actual potential – think for example, the 1960s space age cartoon The Jetsons, which featured a sentient robot maid and automated flying cars (both of which we are still waiting for, even 50 years on).
Now, a confluence of factors has given rise to hopes that computers with human-like cognitive ability may soon be a reality.
That sentiment was etched in public consciousness last March when AlphaGo, a sophisticated Google AI platform, staged a stunning victory against a human grandmaster in the ancient Chinese game of Go – seen until then as beyond the comprehension of even the most advanced computers.