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The idea of creating a form of artificial intelligence has been around for decades and there have been various portrayals of A.I. in books and films over the years. Usually imagined as humanoid robots or huge computers, humans seem to have an underlying anxiety and fear of what might happen if we really managed to create powerful artificial intelligence. From HAL in 2001 to Skynet in the Terminator films, A.I. is viewed as potentially dangerous.
People needn’t worry though, because we are far from creating any sort of artificial intelligence which would threaten humanity. While it may be possible to create a form of A.I. which can outperform a human at a specific task or game, like chess for example, these A.I. creations do not come anywhere near reaching the ability of the human brain. Our ability to make calculations at speed is incredible, for example the hand-eye co-ordination and computation required for a robot to track and catch a ball which is thrown at it, or maintain balance in bipedal locomotion, are massive tasks, while for most of us they are simple and learned early in life.
