Artificial intelligence: Ten things you need to know about the future of AI

The history of artificial intelligence (AI) dates back into antiquity – intelligent robots appear in the myths of many ancient societies, including Greek, Arabic, Egyptian and Chinese. Today, the field of artificial intelligence is more vibrant than ever and some believe that we're on the threshold of discoveries that could change human society irreversibly, for better or worse. Humans tend to think in straight lines, but every aspect of technological progress is actually accelerating – including AI. Futurist Ray Kurzweil calls this the "Law of Accelerating Returns", and presents evidence that an amount of progress equal to the entire 20th century's gains was attained between 2000 and 2014. He also argues that the same amount will happen again before 2021. Understanding the exponential nature of progress and ignoring the inner tendency to think things will keep improving at the same rate is key to getting to grips with how fast we'll make scientific advances in the future.