Machines just beat humans at reading, putting millions of jobs at risk

Artificial intelligence (AI) software developed by Alibaba Group has performed better than humans in a global reading comprehension test, the first time that machines have outperformed people. The AI research arm of China's biggest online commerce company developed a machine-learning model that scored higher on the Stanford Question Answering Dataset, a large-scale reading comprehension test with more than 100,000 questions, according to a release by the company. On January 11, Alibaba's machine-learning models scored 82.44 on the test, compared with 82.304 by humans. While computers have beaten humans at complex games like chess, where raw computing power and an infallible memory have given bots an advantage, languages are generally seen as harder for machines to master. AlphaGo's China showdown: why it's time to embrace artificial intelligence The win has broader implications for how companies deploy machine learning to replace customer service jobs that have so far relied on armies of call-centre employees to handle inquiries.