Human debate champion defeats IBM's smartest EVER AI-powered machine

Humankind has notched up a rare victory against the machines in the ongoing battle  with artificial intelligence.  

London's Harish Natarajan, 31, was a grand finalist at the 2016 World Debating Championship and defeated IBM's Miss Debater in a discussion regarding the potential subsidising of pre-schooling. 

It draws on more than ten billion sentences from a variety of areas, including scientific research and newspaper cuts.

A lecture theatre of 700 people deemed the human participant to be the victor after hearing a four-minute opening statement, a four-minute rebuttal, and a two-minute summary. 

The machine is the culmination of seven years of research and builds on the success of the Watson project. 

Watson pioneered the field of artificial intelligence but has not been without criticism. 

Last year it provided 'often inaccurate' and 'unsafe' treatment recommendations for cancer patients when used as part of an oncology system.

It recently defeated the world's most accomplished humans at Chess, Go and Dota 2.

London's Harish Natarajan, 31, defeated IBM's Miss Debater in San Francisco. Miss Debater was arguing in favour of the motion and Mr Natarajan argued against it

London's Harish Natarajan, 31, defeated IBM's Miss Debater in San Francisco. Miss Debater was arguing in favour of the motion and Mr Natarajan argued against it

It was developed over seven years by researchers in multiple countries, including Israel and India.

Miss Debater, renamed after initially being called Project Debater, is programmed to learn from a back-catalogue of data as well as responding to the individual. 

A female voice delivered the argument of the machine from a black monolith that stands as tall as a human and has three blue lights present on a display.  

Neither Mr Natarajan or Miss Debater had time to prepare for the debate before the day and just 15 minutes before it began to swat up on the topic. 

Miss Debater was arguing in favour of the motion and Mr Natarajan argued against it. 

The machine opened the argument by welcoming its opponent and predicting its emergence as victor.

It said: 'Greeting Harish. I have heard that you hold the world record in debate competitions against humans. 

'But I suspect you've never debated a machine. Welcome to the future.' 

It opened its argument with a well constructed argument with several nuanced points. 

A lecture theatre of 700 people deemed the human participant to be the victor after hearing a four-minute opening statement, a four-minute rebuttal, and a two-minute summary

A lecture theatre of 700 people deemed the human participant to be the victor after hearing a four-minute opening statement, a four-minute rebuttal, and a two-minute summary

WHY ARE PEOPLE SO WORRIED ABOUT AI?

It is an issue troubling some of the greatest minds in the world at the moment, from Bill Gates to Elon Musk.

SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk described AI as our 'biggest existential threat' and likened its development as 'summoning the demon'.

He believes super intelligent machines could use humans as pets.

Professor Stephen Hawking said it is a 'near certainty' that a major technological disaster will threaten humanity in the next 1,000 to 10,000 years.

They could steal jobs 

More than 60 percent of people fear that robots will lead to there being fewer jobs in the next ten years, according to a 2016 YouGov survey.

And 27 percent predict that it will decrease the number of jobs 'a lot' with previous research suggesting admin and service sector workers will be the hardest hit.

As well as posing a threat to our jobs, other experts believe AI could 'go rogue' and become too complex for scientists to understand.

A quarter of the respondents predicted robots will become part of everyday life in just 11 to 20 years, with 18 percent predicting this will happen within the next decade. 

They could 'go rogue' 

Computer scientist Professor Michael Wooldridge said AI machines could become so intricate that engineers don't fully understand how they work.

If experts don't understand how AI algorithms function, they won't be able to predict when they fail.

This means driverless cars or intelligent robots could make unpredictable 'out of character' decisions during critical moments, which could put people in danger.

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