An artificially intelligent machine took to the podium at the Cambridge Union in the U.K. to debate the pros and cons of AI with humans--at one point telling the audience "AI can cause a lot of harm." However, it was the side in favor of AI that came out top, achieving a narrow victory by scoring votes from just over half the audience. According to Fortune, the AI's arguments were extracted from over 1,100 submissions sent in to IBM the week before the debate, which were categorized as being in favor or opposed to AI, or discarded entirely as being irrelevant to the debate. From these, IBM's Project Debater searched and condensed the strongest and most diverse arguments to repeat when given a short opening sentence as a prompt. The case for the benefits of AI included the argument that it could generate new jobs and bring greater efficiency to the workplace, while those against included the problem of human biases and AI being incapable of making moral decisions.

Last Thursday (November 21), the Cambridge Union Society hosted what turned out to be the most popular debate of term: This house believes artificial intelligence will bring more harm than good. The chamber was filled to its maximum capacity, with people having to be turned away at the door. A wealth of news outlets, including the BBC, CNN and the New Scientist attended to cover the event. This fervour of attention is hardly surprising: IBM Research's Project Debater, the first artificial intelligence platform that can debate humans on complex topics, was the leading'speaker' on both the proposition and opposition. The night opened with a brief introduction from the principal investigator of Project Debater, Noam Slonim.

Last Thursday (November 21), the Cambridge Union Society hosted what turned out to be the most popular debate of term: THB Artificial Intelligence will bring more harm than good. The chamber was filled to its maximum capacity, with people having to be turned away at the door. A wealth of news outlets, including the BBC, CNN and the New Scientist attended to cover the event. This fervour of attention is hardly surprising: IBM Research's Project Debater, the first artificial intelligence platform that can debate humans on complex topics, was the leading'speaker' on both the proposition and opposition. The night opened with a brief introduction from the principal investigator of Project Debater, Noam Slonim.