Man vs machine: IBM's latest AI system loses to a human in debate but shows vast improvement

There's been a constant debate on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and how if things go awry, it can pose a threat to mankind. In the battle of arguments, a human has defeated IBM's AI-based debating system. Harish Natarajan, the grand finalist of the 2016 World Debating Championships, engaged in a face-off against a system built to debate with humans. Natarajan defeated IBM Project Debater, which is touted as the'first AI system built to debate'. The competition took place in front of 700 people, including debaters at the Yerba Buena Center, who were asked to vote for either side before and after the debate. The topic for the debate was based on subsidising pre-schools, which was not revealed until 15 minutes before they got onto the stage.