Artificial Intelligence extends human intelligence: expert

Artificial Intelligence (AI) extends human intelligence, so says Neil Jacobstein, Artificial Intelligence and Robotics Co-Chair at Singularity University, California.

Jacobstein is currently in the southern Spanish city of Seville taking part in the Singularity University Summit, where over 600 CEOs, entrepreneurs and researchers from different countries of Europe and the Middle East are attending talks from Silicon Valley's top experts.

In an interview with Xinhua, Jacobstein told Xinhua that AI extends human intelligence in that it can beat it and after passing a turning point, it exceeds the expectations people have of the field.

"AI is able to not just play a good game of chess and beat the world champion at chess, which happened in 1997, but it is also able to beat the two world champions in jeopardy," he exemplified.

Jacobstein said AI was being applied in every area of our lives: "In almost every area of human endeavor, we have AI extending the range of what people can do because it extends human intelligence and the ability to make inferences from the massive amount of data in the world."

However, this incredible and extraordinary intelligence might be scary in some cases.

"Anytime you bring new elements to a complex ecosystem, it perturbs that ecosystem, but if you built it right...and monitor for bad effects and rapidly adapt if something bad happens, you can get good outcomes," he said.

The Singularity Summit is organized by Singularity University in Silicon Valley, California, which collaborates with institutions such as NASA and Google.

The summit showcases the latest developments in technology, such as self-driving cars, robotics, artificial intelligence or biotechnology. It runs from March 12 to 14. Endit