DeepMind unveils the world's first test to assess dangerous AI's and algorithms

Earlier this year a group of world experts convened to discuss Doomsday scenarios and ways to counter them. The problem though was that they found discussing the threats humanity faces easy, but as for solutions, well, in the majority of cases they were stumped. This week DeepMind, Google's world famous Artificial Intelligence (AI) arm, in a world first, announced they have an answer to the potential AI apocalypse predicted by the group and leading luminaries ranging from Elon Musk to Stephen Hawking, whose fears of a world dominated by AI powered "killer robots" have been hitting the headlines all year, in the form of a test that can assess how dangerous AI's and algorithms really are, or, more importantly, could become. In the announcement, which was also followed up by a paper on the topic, DeepMind said they'd managed to develop a test that would help people assess the safety of new AI algorithms that will power everything from self-driving cars, and cancer treatments to biometric security solutions and voice recognition, as well as those infamous autonomous robots and autonomous weapons systems, and DeepMind's lead researcher, Jan Leike, said that AI algorithms that don't pass their test are probably "pretty dangerous." The test in question is a series of 2D video games in a chessboard like plane made out of pixel blocks that the researchers call "GridWorld" that puts AI's through a series of games in order to evaluate nine safety features that, when combined, can then be used to determine how dangerous an AI is, whether it can modify itself and if it can cheat the game.