Im stephen sackur. For now, the bbc employs human beings like me to question the way our world works. But, for how much longer . As research and Development Effort into Artificial Intelligence intensifies, is there any sphere of human activity that wont be revolutionised by aland robotics . My guest today is alan winfield. A world renowned professor of robot ethics. From driving, to education, to work and warfare, are we unleashing machines which could turn the dark visions of Science Fiction into science fact . Alan winfield, welcome to hardtalk. High, delighted to be here, stephen. You do have a fascinating title, professor of robot ethics, im tempted to ask you first, whats most important to you, the engineering, the robotics or the ethics, being an ethicist . Well, both are equally important. I am fundamentally an engineer, so i bring and engineering perspective to robot ethics and engineering. But, i would say, that more than half of my work now is actually thinking about. And, you know, im kind of a professional warrior now. Would you say the balance has shifted 7 that over the course of your career, because you started out, very much in computers and engineering, that increasingly as you have dug deep into the subject, in a sense, the more philosophical side of it, has been writ large for you. Absolutely right, yes. Actually, it was really getting involved in Public Engagement, robotics Public Engagement 15 years ago, that, if you like, alerted me, and sensitised me to ethical questions about round robotics and ai. Lets take this phrase, Artificial Intelligence. It raises an immediate question, in my mind, of how we define intelligence. So, i wondered if you could do that for me . Its really difficult. In fact, one of the fundamentals, if you like, philosophical problems with al, is we dont have a satisfactory definition for natural intelligence. So, here is a simple definition. Its doing the right thing at the right time. But, thats not very helpful from a scientific point of view. One thing that we can say about intelligence, is that its not one thing that we all have more or less of. What about thinking . Are we really, in the course of this conversation, talking about the degree to which human beings can make machines that think . It, ithink, thinkings a dangerous word. Its an anthropomorphisation. And in fact, more than that, its a humanisation of the term, intelligence. A lot of the intelligence that year and i have, actually is nothing to do with conscious reflective thought. So, one of the curious things about al, is that what we thought would be very difficult 60 years ago, like playing a board game, chess, has turned out to be, not easy, but relatively easy. Whereas, what we thought would be very easy, 60 years ago, like making a cup of tea, in somebody elses kitchen, has turned out to be enormously difficult. Its interesting that you alight upon board games. In the news over the past few days, we have seen something really quite interesting. Googles Deepmind Department has this machine, computer, call it what you will, the alpha go zero, i think they call it, which has achieved astounding results playing this game. Im not familiar with it, but a game known as go. I think, its primarily played in china, and extraordinarily complex. It has more computations, more moves in it, more, sort of, complexity than chess. And, this machine is now capable of beating, it seems, any human grandmaster, and the real thing about it, is that it is a machine that appears to learn unsupervised. Thats right. I must admit, im somewhat baffled by this, because ive just asked you about thinking, you say, no, dont use that word, but it seems to me, this is a machine that thinks. Well, its a machine that does, if you like, an artificial analogue of thinking. It certainly doesnt do it anyway that you and i do. The technologys based on what is called Artificial Neural Networks. And they are, if you like, an abstract model of biological networks, neural networks, brains, if you like, which actually, we dont understand very well. But, we can still make very simple abstract models, and that is what the technology is. But, i mean, the way to think about the way its it learns and it is a remarkable breakthrough, imean, its. I dont want to over hype it, because it only plays go, it cant make a cup of tea, but the very interesting thing is the earlier generations effectively had to be trained on data that was gleaned from human experts, and many, many games of go. It had to be loaded with external information. Thats right. And that was what we called supervised learning, whereas the new version, and again, if i understand correctly, i only scanned the paper, this morning, the nature paper, is doing unsupervised learning. Technically, we call it reinforcement learning. The idea is that the machine is given nothing else than the, if you like, the game, the rules of the game, and its world is the board. The go board and the pieces. And then, itjust plays essentially against itself, millions and millions of times. If a bit like, you know, you, ora human infant, learning how to, i did know, play with building blocks, lego, entirely on his or her own, byjust learning over and over again. Of course, is humans dont actually learn like that. Mostly, we learn with supervision, with you know, parents, teachers, brothers and sisters, family and so on. But, its interesting, you are prepared to use a word like, learning. Thinking, you dont like, learning, youre prepared to apply to a machine . Thats right, yes. And what i want to get to, before we go into the specifics of Driverless Cars and autonomous fighting machines, and all of that, i still want to stay with the big picture stuff, the human brain, youve already mentioned the human brain, it is the most complex mechanism we know of. On this planet. Is it possible, talking about the way that google mind and others are developing Artificial Intelligence, that we can all look to create machines that are as complex with the billions and trillions of moving parts, if i can put it that way, that the human brain possesses . I would say in principle, yes, but not for a very long time. I think the problem of making an ai or robot if you like, a robot isjust ai in a physical body, that is comparable in intelligence to a human being, an average human being if you like, averagely intelligent human being, is extraordinary difficult and part of the problem, part of the reason its so difficult is we dont actually have the design, if you like, the architecture of human minds. But in principle you think we can get it . What im driving at really is this principle philosophical question of what the brain is. To you, professor, is the brain in the end chemistry . Is it material . Is it a lump of matter . Yes. Does it have any spiritual or any other tangible thing . It is chemistry . Im a materialist, yes, the brain is thinking meat. That is a bit of a copout. You said thinking meat, it is meat and the way that meat is arranged means it could think, so you could create something artificial where, if it was as complex and well arranged as Human Capacity could make it one day, it could also think . I believe in principle, yes. But the key thing is architecture. In a sense, the way to think about the current work on Artificial Intelligence, we have these Artificial Neural Networks which are almost like the building blocks. Its a bit like having marble, butjust having a lot of wonderful italian marble doesnt mean you can make a cathedral, you need to have the design, you need to have the architecture and the know how to build that cathedral and we dont have anything like that. One more general point and then i want to get down to the specifics. Nick bostrom at oxford university, you know him, i know you do because he works in the same field as you, you have to think of ai as a fundamental game changer for humanity. It could be the last invention that human intelligence ever needs to make, he says, because its the beginning of a completely new era, the Machine Intelligence era and in a sense we are a bit like children playing with something we have picked up and it happens to be an unexploded bomb and we dont even know the consequences that could come with it. Do you share that vision . I partially share it. Where i disagree with nick is that i dont think we are under threat from a kind of runaway super intelligence, which is the thesis of his book of that subject, superintelligence, but i do think we need to be ever so careful. In a way, i alluded to this earlier, we dont understand what natural intelligence is, we dont have any general scientific theory of intelligence so trying to build artificial general intelligence is a bit like trying to do particle physics at cern without any theory, without any underlying scientific theory. It seems to me that we need both some serious theory, which we dont have yet, we have some but it isnt unified, there isnt a single theory if you like like the standard model physics. We also need to do responsible research and innovation. In other words we need to innovate ethically to make sure any, as it were unintended consequences are foreseen and we head them off. Lets talk in a more practical sense, unintended consequences may well come up. Lets start with something i think most of us are aware of now, and regard as one of the most both challenging and perhaps exciting specific ai achievements, that is the driverless car. Yes. It seems to me all sorts of issues are raised by a world in which cars are driverless. A lot of moral and ethical issues as well as practical ones. You work with people in this field, are you excited by Driverless Cars . Iam, yes. I think Driverless Cars have tremendous potential for two things. Do you see them as robots . I do, yes, a driverless car is a robot. Typically once a robot becomes part of normal life we stop calling it a robot, like a vacuum cleaner. I think there are two tremendous advances from Driverless Cars we can look forward to, one is reducing the number of People Killed in road traffic accidents significantly, if we can achieve that, so im going to be cautious when i speak more on this. The other is giving mobility to people, elderly people, disabled people who currently dont have that. Both of those are very practical but Science Magazine last year studied a group of almost 2,000 people, ask them about what they wanted to see in terms of the morality, almost of using Driverless Cars, how the programming of the car would be developed to ensure that, for example, in a hypothetical, if a car was on the road and it was about to crash but if it veered off the road to avoid a crash it would hit a group of schoolchildren being led by a teacher down the road. The public in this survey wanted to know that the car would in the end accept its own destruction and that of its driver, human passenger rather, as opposed to saving itself and ploughing into the children on the side of the road. How do you as a robot ethicist cope with this sort of challenge . The first thing id say is lets not get it out of proportion. You have to ask yourself as a human driver, probably like me youve got many years of experience of driving, have you ever encountered that situation . Not in my case, but i want to know if i ever step into a driverless car someone has thought about this. I think youre right. The ethicists and the lawyers are not clear. The point is we need to have a conversation. I think its really important that if we have Driverless Cars that make those kinds of ethical decisions, you know, that essentially decide whether to potentially harm the occupants. Youre doing what you told me off for doing, youre anthropomorphising, it wouldnt be making an ethical decision, it would be reflecting the values of the programmer. Those rules need to be decided by the whole of society. The fact is, whatever those rules are, there will be occasions when the rules result in consequences that we dont like and therefore i think the whole of Society Needs to if you like own the responsibility for those cases. So, this is you making a call, whether it be Driverless Cars, or any of the other examples we are currently thinking about with al, of the Technological Developments in lockstep with a new approach to monitoring, regulation, sort of universal standardisation. And, the conversation, a Big Conversation in society, so that we, if you like, own the ethics that we decide should be invented. But, thats not been to help is it, because at the moment, much of the development here, you work in bristol, in a robot lab, buta lot of the cutting edge work in this field is done in the private sector, we have already mentioned google, there are Many Companies doing it, some of it is done by secretive defence establishment around the world, there is no standardisation, there is no cooperation, and in fact, it is a deeply competitive world. Well, there jolly well needs to be. I mean, my view is very simple, the autopilot of the driverless car should be subject to the same levels of compliance with safety standards, as, you know, for instance, the autopilot of an aircraft. We all accept that we wouldnt, you and i would not get into an aircraft, if we thought that the autopilot has not met those very high standards. And, i think its inconceivable that we could allow Driverless Cars on our roads that have not passed those kinds of safety certification processes. Lets leave Driverless Cars, and go to areas which are perhaps, more problematic, for human beings, because they develop the idea of the machine, the future intelligent machine, taking jobs and roles, that have traditionally always been done by human beings, because they involve things like empathy, and care, and compassion. Now, i am thinking about roles of social carers, as educators, teachers, and even, frankly, a sexual partner, because the all now read about the sex bots. So, in these roles, do you feel comfortable with the notion that machines will take over from human beings . No, and in fact, i dont think they will. They already are, japan has carers that are machines. Yes, but, we need to make a distinction here, that a carer robot may well be able to care for you, in other words, for your physical needs. It cannot care about you. 0nly humans can care about other humans, or any other animal. Objects, you know, robots, cannot care about people or things, for that matter. And, the same is true for teachers. Teachers, typically care about their classes,. So, do you think some people are getting way overheated, about this, one of britainss most well known teachers, anthony seldon, who ran wellington college, for a while, he now says that in his vision of a future education system, kids will be, many of them, taught one on one, in a spectacular new way by machines. He said it is like giving every kid access to the best private schools. Well, i think, that ultimately, there might well be, and we are talking about sometime into the future, some combination of machine teaching and human teaching. You cannot take the human out, and a really important thing to remember, here, is the peculiarly human characteristics of empathy, sympathy, theory of mind, the ability to anticipate, to read each other, these are uniquely human characteristics, and so are intuition, creativity, innovation, these are things that we have no idea how to build artificially. Jobs that involve those things are safe. Interesting, because, a lot of people nowadays, are looking at doomsday scenarios, any development of robotics in al, and frankly, mostjobs one can think of, and i was sort of being a little bit flippant at the beginning about being a presenter who might be replaced by a robot, but you are suggesting to me that the idea that so many different jobs, notjust blue collar, but white collar as well, are going to end up being done by machines. Again, youre saying we are overstating it . I think we are overstating it. Yes, significantly. I am not saying it wont happen eventually, but i think that what we will have is much more time than people suppose, to find, if you like a harmonious, if you like, accommodation between human and machine. That actually allows asked to exploit the qualities of humans and the, if you like, the skills, do things that humans want to do. If you dont mind me saying, you seem both extraordinarily sanguine and comfortable and optimistic about a way in which ai is developing. Under the control of human beings, and yourfaith in humanitys ability to cooperate on this and established standards, seems to me to run in the face of the facts, because one area which i want to end with, in a way, is weaponisation. Is the notion that al and robotics are going to revolutionise warfare and war fighting, now, you are one of a thousand senior scientists who signed an appeal, i think, for a ban on al weaponry in 2015, but thats not been to happen, is it . Well, the ban. Did you see what Vladimir Putin said . Artificial intelligence, is the future for russia, for all of humankind, and, this is the key bit. Whoever becomes the leader in this sphere will become the ruler of the world. Well, yes, i am an optimist, but i am also very worried about exactly this thing, and of course, we have already seen the political weaponisation of ai. Its pretty clear, isnt it, that the evidence is mounting that al was used in the recent elections . You are talking about the hacking, and that came from, we believe, from russia . Indeed. And that is a political weaponisation, so we do need to be worried about these things, we do need to have ethical standards. We need to have worldwide agreement, and i am optimistic abouta ban on lethal autonomous weapon systems. The campaign, you know, is getting traction, there has been all sorts of discussions, and i know some of the people involved very well at the united nations. Yes, but, we know the limitations of the united nations, we know the limitations of politics, frankly, and we know that human nature usually leads to be striving to compete and to win, whether it be in politics on the battlefield, or whatever. Let me just leave you with this thought. It seems to me, there is a real debate within science, right now, and you are on one side, relatively sanguine and optimistic, Stephen Hawking, perhaps on the other side said this recently, the development of full Artificial Intelligence could spell the end of the human race. Do you find that kind of thought helpful, or deeply unhelpful . I find it deeply unhelpful. I mean, the problem is, that it isnt inevitable. What he is talking about, here, is a very small probability, and its, if you like, a very long series of if this happens, then if that happens, then if that happens, and so one,. I wrote about this in the observer, back in 2014. Before Stephen Hawking got involved in this debate. In my view, we are worrying about an extraordinarily unlikely event. That is the intelligence explosion. Do you think we have actually been too conditioned by Science Fiction and by the terminator concept. There is no doubt about that. And, the problem is of course that we are fascinated. It is a combination of fear and fascination. That is why we love Science Fiction. But, in your view, it is fiction. Well, that scenario is fiction, but, you are quite right, stephen, there are tonnes of things that we should worry about now. We need to worry about, as you say, jobs, weaponisation of ai, standards of Driverless Cars, in the care robots, in medical diagnosis ais. There is lots of stuff that are here and now problems, in a sense, that are kind of more to do with the fact that al is not very intelligent. So, we need to worry about artificial stupidity. That is a very neat way of ending. Alan winfield, thank you very much. You are very welcome. It was a pleasure. Thank you very much indeed. Hello there. Right now were more concerned about snow and ice rather than the strength of the wind. But for a while on thursday we had a gust of 90mph in the far north of scotland, all due of course to storm caroline. The centre of that storm is heading away from scotland and over towards scandinavia. But around that deep area of low pressure weve still got some very windy weather right now. Across the whole of the country. So weve had some snow already. There will be more of that and some icy conditions continuing into friday. Keep up to date with any travel disruption on bbc local radio. Now, snow not unusual across northern scotland at this time of year and therell be more snow piling up. Blizzards in the hills as well. Probably largely dry and sunny and frosty across lothian borders into much of the central belt too, but more snow showers for northern ireland, getting blown over the irish see into north west england, into the north West Midlands and wales, and its here we could see most of the disruption into the morning, as well as northern ireland. Rain right along the coast. A wintry mix in the south west of england. But for many eastern parts of england, friday could be largely dry and quite sunny as well. Those wintry showers mostly of snow inland continuing in roughly the same sort of area through the day, perhaps moving further into the midlands. The totals could be 5 10 centimetres here and there, perhaps more than that in the north west of scotland. It will be a cold day. These are the temperatures. Because its going to be windy there will be a significant windchill, so it will feel quite a bit colder, a real change from what weve seen earlier this week. The winds gradually ease off a little overnight, but the wintry showers, mostly snow inland, continue, perhaps lacking some of the potency, but nevertheless, icy conditions and a covering of snow in many northern and western parts of the uk. And a frost more widely and quite severe again, particularly in the countryside and over the higher ground. It wont be quite as windy on saturday. There will still be wintry showers around, but not as heavy. Probably turning more to rain in the south west with damp is beginning to rise a little. Nevertheles, elsewhere its a cold day. Coming into that cold air, more problems on sunday, with this weather system here. A lot of uncertainty about the position of that weather system. But theres the potential for significant snowfall across parts of wales, midlands, Northern England and northern ireland. Very cold in that wet weather and to the north. Mild and windy in the south west. This is the briefing. Im david eades. Our top story has there been a breakthrough in Britains Brexit talks . The Prime Minister theresa may is expected in brussels within the hour. A long night here in downing street we expect to get confirmation from the European Commission in the next half hour whether there will be a meeting with Prime Minister may in brussels. I will be live from downing street with all the latest. 200,000 people are evacuated as wildfires continue to rage across california. Violent protests after president trumps recognition ofjerusalem as israels capital the white house warns the Palestinian Leader not to cancel talks with Vice President pence. In business when a 20 trillion overdraft just isnt enough