People who think about the long-term existential risks of artificial intelligence sometimes discuss the notion of an "AI box." To prevent a superintelligent computer from starting a nuclear war or otherwise wreaking havoc, its minders would seal it off from direct interaction with the outside world by keeping it offline. The only output would be communication with its operators. But, people worry, it might still escape, not through hacking but through "social engineering"--manipulating someone into setting it free. Such a scenario dramatically played out in the 2014 sci-fi thriller Ex Machina, in which a wily imprisoned robot seduces a hapless human into helping it break out.

Data61, the innovation arm of Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), has used artificial intelligence (AI) and gamification to help psychiatrists and other clinicians accurately diagnose patients with mental health disorders and help improve overall mental health research. Speaking to ZDNet during D61 Live in Sydney on Wednesday, lead author of the research Amir Dezfouli said the idea for the research brings together his two areas of specialty: neuroscience and AI. "We know from neuroscience that most of the mental health disorders affect how we make decisions. One of the easiest ways to assess that is to complete a simple task or – in this case – a simple computer game, which allows us to record a patient's behaviour," he said. "We then use machine learning AI to analyse this complex data set. This gives us an idea about the underlying pathology and gives us a diagnosis of mental health disorders."

A team of researchers led by CSIRO's Data61, the data and digital specialist arm of Australia's national science agency, have developed a novel technique that could assist psychiatrists and other clinicians to diagnose and characterize complex mental health disorders, potentially enabling more effective treatments. Announced today at D61 LIVE in Sydney, the researchers revealed that using a simple computer game and artificial intelligence techniques, they were able to identify behavioral patterns in subjects with depression and bipolar disorder, down to subtle individual differences in each group. The study included 101 participants: 34 with depression, 33 with bipolar disorder, and a control group of 34 subjects. The computer game presents individuals with two choices, and tracks their behavior as they respond. The complex data collected from the game is analyzed through artificial neural networks--brain-inspired systems intended to replicate the way that humans learn--which are able to disentangle the nuanced behavioral differences between healthy individuals, and those with depression or bipolar disorder.