Artificial intelligence has potential to make superhumans

Intelligent machines of the future will help restore memory, mind your children, fetch your coffee and even care for ageing parents. It will all be part of a brave new world of the not-so-distant future, in which innovative smart machines, rather than being the undoing of people - as some technophobes have long feared - actually enhance humans. Many experts say technology will allow people to take on tasks they might only have dreamed of in the past. "Super-intelligence should give us superhuman abilities," said Tom Gruber, head of the team responsible for Apple's Siri digital assistant, during an on-stage talk at the prestigious TED Conference in Vancouver. "Artificial intelligence can enable partnerships where each human on the team is doing what they do best," he told the popular technology conference. Gruber, a co-creator of Siri and artificial intelligence research at Apple, told of being drawn to the field three decades ago by the potential for technology to meet people's needs.