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       Whether or not you believe Professor Stephen Hawkingˈs alarming theory that building a “strong” artificial intelligence (AI) could lead to the end of the human race, it’s clear that AI is reaching the point where soon it will affect almost every aspect of how we work with computers. We must get used to computers that talk back.

       Last year, investment bank Deep Ventures attracted much media attention when it announced that it had appointed an AI computer to its board of directors to help make important business decisions. What actually happened was that the company used a program called VITAL to analyse potential investments (授资) in different businesses. But VITAL doesnˈt attend board meetings or vote — it’s just a program. While itˈs not quite the evil robot we see in science fiction movies, it shows us how far computers and AI have advanced.

       Soon AI systems will be driving our vehicles, interpreting our facial expressions as we perform complex tasks, translating our voices into different languages and building other machines for us in factories around the world. But they wonˈt look like us or pretend to be human.

       In the new film Ex Machina, a computer scientist is asked to assess whether a beautiful human-looking robot called Ava has human intelligence. I wonˈt spoil the film for you, but it occurred to me that one of the reasons we believe other human beings are conscious and have intelligence is that we’re told they are all .the time. Indeed, if you stopped believing other people have minds, you would quickly find yourself unable to function in the world.

       Google’s Eric Schmidt argues that we shouldnˈt worry about AI, and that we need instead to redesign our education systems so that we learn how to get on with the machines. As powerful computer-based intelligences continue developing, we must let go of the belief that only humans have intelligence and consciousness. Just as we have accepted the reality that the self-awareness that makes minds possible exists within the animal world, we may soon accept that it can also exist within the machine world.