Artificial Intelligence (AI) has incredible potential to improve lives and create a better world, but the stakes are high and the consequences will be disastrous if the technology is misused. Those are the findings of a new "horizon scanning" report by the Australian Council of Learned Academies (ACOLA), titled The Effective and Ethical Development of Artificial Intelligence – An Opportunity to Improve our Wellbeing. "Horizon scanning" is a way for governments and decision-makers to "look at the future challenges and opportunities that the technologies pose", UNSW Professor of Artificial Intelligence Toby Walsh, co-chair of the report's expert working group, said. The report draws on research and expertise from a wide range of disciplines including science, medicine, economics, philosophy and law. At its best, AI has the power to enhance Australia's wellbeing, lift the economy, improve environmental sustainability and create a more equitable, inclusive and fair society, the report said.

Go player Lee Sedol (R) during the third game of the Google DeepMind Challenge Match against Google-developed supercomputer AlphaGo. Leading Australian artificial intelligence scientist Professor Toby Walsh is warning that we are "sleepwalking" into an AI future in which billions of machines and computers will be able to think. Professor Walsh, from the University of New South Wales, is calling for a national discussion about whether society needs to adopt clear boundaries and guidelines around how AI is developed and how it's used in our lives. In his book It's Alive: Artificial Intelligence From The Logic Piano to Killer Robots, he has highlighted key questions in a series of predictions that describe how our future could be far better or far worse because of AI. Here's how he thinks society might change by 2050 thanks to artificial intelligence.

In one of the most chilling technological demonstrations to date, the internet giant showed its digital assistant could mimic a human over the phone so convincingly the person on the other end of the line had no idea they were talking to a machine. In one demonstration, the artificially intelligent bot called a hairdresser and booked a haircut for its client. In another, the bot made a restaurant reservation after inquiring about wait times to a worker oblivious she was speaking to a computer. The company unveiled the technology this week at its annual developers conference, Google I/O, alongside other artificially intelligent additions that could write emails and drive cars and generally cut humans out of the picture. If you haven't seen it yet, you can watch the controversial demo below: Zeynep Tufekci, a technologist and associate professor at the University of North Carolina who regularly dispels the benevolent aura of the tech giants for The New York Times, has lashed out at Google's latest showcase experiment.

Artificial intelligence from a Chinese tech giant has defeated the country's best player of the board game Go, despite giving the grandmaster an advantage -- matching and perhaps surpassing Google's efforts last year. The artificial intelligence (AI) developed by Chinese company Tencent beat world number-two Go player Ke Jie last week with a two-stone handicap, the official People's Daily newspaper reported. Handicaps are used in Go to even out the difference in skill level between players. Google's AlphaGo AI beat Ke last year just months after defeating fellow grandmaster Lee Se-dol of South Korea -- however AlphaGo has never competed against top-level players using a handicap. AlphaGo has since been placed in retirement, with Google instead focusing its energies on its self-teaching AlphaGo Zero machine, which mastered the complex game in 40 days last year.

Artificial intelligence has jumped from sci-fi movie plots into mainstream news headlines in just a couple of years. And the headlines are often contradictory. AI is either a technological leap into greater prosperity or mass unemployment; it will either be our most valuable servant or terrifying master. But what is AI, how does it work, and what are the benefits and the concerns? AI is a computer system that can do tasks that humans need intelligence to do. "An intelligent computer system could be as simple as a program that plays chess or as complex as a driverless car," Mary-Anne Williams, professor of social robotics at the University of Technology, Sydney, said.

What does the worldwide head of research at Google tell his kids about how to prepare for the future of work with artificial intelligence? "I tell them … wherever they will be working in 20 years probably doesn't exist now," Peter Norvig says. Be flexible, he says, "and have an ability to learn new things". Future of work experts (yes, it's a thing now) and AI scientists who spoke to Lateline variously described a future in which there were fewer full-time, traditional jobs requiring one skill set; fewer routine administrative tasks; fewer repetitive manual tasks; and more jobs working for and with "thinking" machines. From chief executives to cleaners, "everyone will do their job differently working with machines over the next 20 years," Andrew Charlton, economist and director of AlphaBeta, says.

Based on those inputs, among others, the "intelligent" computer system controls the car by deciding, like a human would, when to turn the steering and when to accelerate or brake. "We now have the compute power, the data, the algorithms and a lot of people working on the problems," Professor Walsh said. "Many of the problems that are stressing our planet today will be tackled through having better decision making with computers" that access and analyse vast troves of data, he said. The recent push into AI came from big US tech companies such as Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft and Apple.

Based on those inputs, among others, the "intelligent" computer system controls the car by deciding, like a human would, when to turn the steering and when to accelerate or brake. "We now have the compute power, the data, the algorithms and a lot of people working on the problems," Professor Walsh said. "Many of the problems that are stressing our planet today will be tackled through having better decision making with computers" that access and analyse vast troves of data, he said. The recent push into AI came from big US tech companies such as Google, Facebook, Amazon, Microsoft and Apple.

Artificial intelligence has jumped from sci-fi movie plots into mainstream news headlines in just a couple of years. And the headlines are often contradictory. AI is either a technological leap into greater prosperity or mass unemployment; it will either be our most valuable servant or terrifying master. But what is AI, how does it work, and what are the benefits and the concerns? AI is a computer system that can do tasks that humans need intelligence to do. "An intelligent computer system could be as simple as a program that plays chess or as complex as a driverless car," Mary-Anne Williams, professor of social robotics at the University of Technology, Sydney, said.

Leading Australian artificial intelligence scientist Professor Toby Walsh is warning that we are "sleepwalking" into an AI future in which billions of machines and computers will be able to think. Professor Walsh, from the University of New South Wales, is calling for a national discussion about whether society needs to adopt clear boundaries and guidelines around how AI is developed and how it's used in our lives. In his book It's Alive: Artificial Intelligence From The Logic Piano to Killer Robots, he has highlighted key questions in a series of predictions that describe how our future could be far better or far worse because of AI. Here's how he thinks society might change by 2050 thanks to artificial intelligence. Humans drive drunk, tired and distracted and cause 95 per cent of accidents.