How the technology that is revolutionising our world actually works, and what that means, from the Research Director at the UK government’s AI Safety Institute

Stunning advances in digital technology have given us a new wave of disarmingly human-like AI systems. The march of this new technology is set to upturn our economies, challenge our democracies, and refashion society in unpredictable ways. We can expect these AI systems to soon be making autonomous decisions on the user’s behalf, with transformative impact on everything we do. It is vital we understand how they work.

Can AI systems ‘think’, ‘know’ and ‘understand’? Could they manipulate or deceive you, and if so, what might they make you do? Whose interests do they ultimately represent? And when will they be able to move beyond words and take actions for themselves in the real world? Ultimately, can we look forward to a technological utopia, or are we in the process of writing ourselves out of history?