The Reality of Humanoid A.I.

With the spectacle of last month’s Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) parliament address, the notion of humanoid A.I. seen more relevant than ever.?

If you haven’t heard, the UK parliament recently heard a testimony from a robot named Ai-Da. This begs the question: is a world of intelligent humanoid A.I. just over the horizon?

Since the conception of early automations, the idea of an intelligent robot has evoked both fear and imagination in humans. Popular science-fiction films of the 80s like Blade Runner and The Terminator have propelled this public perception that human-like machines can become a dangerous threat to humans. While this doesn’t extend to human reality, it has crept beyond popular culture and into an existential threat.

Modern A.I. programs can be impressive enough on their own, but when this is presented as a humanoid robot – such as the Ai-Da – it provides an illusion of sentience where there is none.

A.I. Sentience?

Even today’s cutting-edge A.I. have nothing approaching human cognitive ability, but are instead based in machine learning, and pattern-matching. This allows A.I. such as chatbots to appear more 'human-like’. However, these programs don’t have any sentience or common sense in the way that humans do.

Illusions?

While speculating on the far future is important for innovation, it can unfortunately lead to a culture that caters to spectacle rather than real technical developments.?

This can very much apply to humanoid A.I. where the image of a robot addressing parliament will undoubtedly draw more attention than incremental updates in self-driving cars.?

During the parliament address several techniques were used to further humanise the robot, such as putting sunglasses on it to cover its eyes while it rebooted.?

The A.I. parliament address was a milestone for sure, but do you think it was more relevant for technology or for popular culture??