The rise and rise of intelligent machines Information Age

AI, and the branch of this discipline called deep learning, crashed the public consciousness on March 9 when Google DeepMind's AlphaGo program beat South Korean champion Lee Se-dol at ancient Chinese game Go. Since then, barely a week has gone by without a fresh breakthrough – or scare story. True AI implies a change in the relationship between machine and human – from predictable task worker reliant on our instructions, to a system which has the capacity to surprise and surpass us. For many, the loss of control inherent in this change is alarming. Hal and Skynet are suddenly too close for comfort.