An artificial intelligence has debated the dangers of AI – narrowly convincing audience members that the technology will do more good than harm. Project Debater, a robot developed by IBM, spoke on both sides of the argument, with two human teammates for each side helping it out. Talking in a female American voice to a crowd at the University of Cambridge Union on Thursday evening, the AI gave each side's opening statements, using arguments drawn from more than 1100 human submissions made ahead of time. On the proposition side, arguing that AI will bring more harm than good, Project Debater's opening remarks were darkly ironic. "AI can cause a lot of harm," it said.

An artificial intelligence has debated with humans about the the dangers of AI – narrowly convincing audience members that AI will do more good than harm. Project Debater, a robot developed by IBM, debated on both sides of the argument, with two human team mates for each side helping it out. Speaking in a female American voice to a crowd at the University of Cambridge Union on Thursday evening, the AI gave each side's opening statements, using arguments drawn from more than 1100 human submissions ahead of time. On the proposition side, arguing that AI will bring more harm than good, Project Debater's opening remarks were darkly ironic. "AI can cause a lot of harm," it said.