TEDx York

Prof Peter Cowling delivers a TEDx talk: 'AI Might Kill Us, But What if AI was Delightful?'​

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is making decisions about which ads to show you in Google, which friends to show you on Facebook, whether to reject your credit card transaction, whether a photo has your face on it...

There are naysayers of doom all around. Hollywood thinks killer robots will finish us off, or a "thoughtless" superintelligent AI will squish us as we might squish a bug. International figures like Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking talk of existential risk.

But, what if we could design a delightful AI? One that surprises and challenges us like a good friend. One that presents us with useful opportunities and suggestions as to how we might enjoy our time, without trying to make a fast buck. One that connects us with interesting compatible people, who can enrich our lives. Maybe, while we still have control, we should be thinking about and creating such a delightful AI.

In the talk we'll explore how we might design a delightful AI, what form it might take, what it could do for us, and what a world full of delightful AIs might look like.