Three Ways We’re 'Making Friends' With Robots

Estimated reading time: 1 minute

As machines become more intelligent our relationship with them is changing, prompting calls from experts like Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking for greater, proactive regulation of artificial intelligence.

Artificial intelligence can sometimes seem like the stuff of science fiction, but the reality is a long way from Blade Runner. Picture: Getty Images

In July 2017 there was a much-hyped story about Facebook abandoning an experiment after two artificially intelligent programs appeared to be chatting to each other in a strange non-human language. Although the truth is little less scary – the researchers realised they had made an error in programming by not encoding a rule to speak in English, so the robots began chatting in a derived shorthand – it instills a sense of fear over an automated future.

While ‘the rise of the machines’ seems like the stuff of science fiction, robots can already perform intelligent tasks like tailoring how they respond to individuals, and organising themselves without direct human input.

“The challenges we’re now facing are about the interaction of humans and robots,” says Professor Chris Manzie, from the University of Melbourne.

Professor Manzie’s work at the Melbourne School of Engineering, with colleagues Associate Professor Denny Oetomo and Associate Professor Ying Tan, covers a range of projects where collaboration between humans and machines is central to meeting the challenges of the future.

Original by: Michelle Moo, University of Melbourne