AI teachers and cybernetics - what could the world look like in 2050? The last 25 years has seen some mind-bending technological changes. At the start of the century, most computers connected to the internet with noisy dial-up connections, Netflix was an online DVD rental company, and the vast majority of people hadn't even heard of a smartphone. Fast forward two and a half decades, and innovations in AI, robotics and much else besides are emerging at an incredible rate. So we decided to ask experts what the next 25 years could bring.

But some transhumanists hope to slowly morph into "immortal cyborgd" with endlessly replaceable parts. Did you recently welcome a child into the world? An upstanding responsible parent such as yourself is surely doing all you can to prepare your little one for all the pitfalls life has in store. However, thanks to technology, children born in 2014 may face a far different set of issues than you ever had to. And we're not talking about simply learning to master a new generation of digital doohickeys, we're talking about living in a world in which the very definition of "human" becomes blurred.

Kevin Warwick is Emeritus Professor at Reading and Coventry Universities. Prior to that he was Deputy Vice Chancellor (Research) at Coventry University, England. His main research areas are artificial intelligence, biomedical systems, robotics and cyborgs. Due to his research as a self-experimenter he is frequently referred to as the world's first Cyborg. Kevin was born in Coventry, UK and left school to join British Telecom.

"Now after wearing it on and off for so long, I do feel like it is an extension of my hand," says Dani Clode, a Royal College of Art student who created a "third thumb" as part of her MA dissertation project. "This is a similar kind of feeling to driving, or using a sewing machine. You don't think about putting your foot down after a while, you think about moving forward and your foot just goes down." Completed earlier this summer, the Third Thumb Project consists of a 3D-printed prosthetic thumb, which is attached to the user's hand, while a bracelet receives signals from a bluetooth device that detects movements in the wearer's foot. To operate the thumb, the wearer just has to press down with one of their feet.

I liked this book very much. It is easy to read and not so difficult to comprehend. However some parts of it I had to read two and three times and I am still not sure that I understood everything. But that depends on my shortcoming and has nothing to do with the style of Kevin Warwick. In my opinion this is a first class intro to AI and I would recommend it to young people who have to decide what to study at college.

Prof. Kevin Warwick interviewed by Francesca Ferrando. These interviews are conceived as a project related to my PhD in Philosophy, on Posthumanism, Artificial Intelligence and Gender. You can check more info on my academic page: http://uniroma3.academia.edu/Francesc... --- CONVERSATION #10 In the Chinese Room argument (1980) John Searle holds that a program cannot give a computer a "mind" nor an "understanding", regardless of how intelligently it might make it behave. He concludes that "I can have any formal program you like, but I still understand nothing". What do you think of the Chinese room argument?

A serious problem in the Turing test for computer intelligence is exposed in a study published in the Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Artificial Intelligence. If a machine were to'take the Fifth Amendment' – that is, exercise the right to remain silent throughout the test – it could, potentially, pass the test and thus be regarded as a thinking entity, authors Kevin Warwick and Huma Shah of Coventry University argue. However, if this is the case, any silent entity could pass the test, even if it were clearly incapable of thought. The test, devised in 1950 by pioneering computer scientist Alan Turing, assesses a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behaviour indistinguishable from that of a human. Also known as the'imitation game', it requires a human judge to converse with two hidden entities, a human and a machine, and then determine which is which.

A serious problem in the Turing test for computer intelligence is exposed in a study published in the Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Artificial Intelligence. If a machine were to'take the Fifth Amendment' – that is, exercise the right to remain silent throughout the test – it could, potentially, pass the test and thus be regarded as a thinking entity, authors Kevin Warwick and Huma Shah of Coventry University argue. However, if this is the case, any silent entity could pass the test, even if it were clearly incapable of thought. The test, devised in 1950 by pioneering computer scientist Alan Turing, assesses a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behaviour indistinguishable from that of a human. Also known as the'imitation game', it requires a human judge to converse with two hidden entities, a human and a machine, and then determine which is which.

A serious problem in the Turing test for computer intelligence is exposed in a study published in the Journal of Experimental and Theoretical Artificial Intelligence. If a machine were to'take the Fifth Amendment' – that is, exercise the right to remain silent throughout the test – it could, potentially, pass the test and thus be regarded as a thinking entity, authors Kevin Warwick and Huma Shah of Coventry University argue. However, if this is the case, any silent entity could pass the test, even if it were clearly incapable of thought. The test, devised in 1950 by pioneering computer scientist Alan Turing, assesses a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behaviour indistinguishable from that of a human. Also known as the'imitation game', it requires a human judge to converse with two hidden entities, a human and a machine, and then determine which is which.