Explainer: What is artificial intelligence?

Artificial intelligence has jumped from sci-fi movie plots into mainstream news headlines in just a couple of years. "An intelligent computer system could be as simple as a program that plays chess or as complex as a driverless car," Mary-Anne Williams, professor of social robotics at the University of Technology, Sydney, said. "Whether it's recognizing objects, identifying people in photos, reading lung scans or transcribing spoken mandarin, if we pick a narrow task like that we give it enough data, the computer learns to do it as well as, if not better, than us," University of New South Wales professor of artificial intelligence Toby Walsh said. Four factors have now converged to push AI beyond games and into our everyday lives and workplaces: Computer processing power is doubling every two years The amount of data being generated is doubling every year Recently, the amount of AI funding has also been doubling every two years There is now 50 years of established AI research, giving us better and better algorithms Loading. There are a range of concerns: That the AI and robotics revolution might create mass unemployment inside a generation That AI will further undermine privacy and democracy through greater mass surveillance by governments and companies That we will be more easily manipulated by personalised algorithms creating fake news That algorithms will be biased but will be used to decide important issues in our lives such as insurance claims, job applications, loan applications and even judicial sentencing That all sounds bad.