Waiting for GlaDOS: What Could Sentient Machines Mean for Humanity?

For decades, we’ve imagine the rise of computer-based life forms, super-intelligences whose intellects could far surpass our own and trigger a new phase in non-human evolution.

Could these visions become real, and why do they have such a grip on our imaginations? How has culture informed AI research? Should we be more worried about sentient machines, or the dumb algorithms and data integration being worked on today? Do we still have privacy under the dead, uncaring gaze of a machine intelligence? What does humanism mean to an artificial intelligence anyway?

Science writer, broadcaster and geneticist Dr Adam Rutherford chairs a panel of human intelligences, including leading roboticist Prof Alan Winfield and Dr Kathleen Richardson.