SCIENCE ON MONDAY: Artificial intelligence, today and tomorrow

In 1950, Alan Turing published a famous article in the magazine Mind — “Computing Machinery and Intelligence” — in which he proposed what is now known as the “Turing Test”. This consists of comparing the answers given by, firstly, a person and secondly by a computer program to questions asked by a person who does not know which of the two is answering. One might think that it would be quite easy to quickly distinguish between one and the other, between the machine and the human. But what if you could distinguish between them? Turing believed that this proved that a machine could possess intelligence.

Ever since its earliest days, Artificial Intelligence has taken the form of computer programs that are designed to carry out operations normally considered to require human intelligence. Thus, Artificial Intelligence represents an authentic challenge to the very definition of human nature which, traditionally speaking, has been defined by concepts such as consciousness, reason, imagination and emotions. Since the creation of the Turing Test, Artificial Intelligence has made enormous progress, to the point when we can say it is now breaking down the traditional frontiers of knowledge. Can we imagine a world in which humans coexist alongside beings created by humans, and who respond like humans, but who were not conceived biologically by human progenitors? Ever since it was founded in 1985, the Artificial Intelligence Research Institute at CSIC has been one of Spain’s pioneering research centres in the field of Artificial Intelligence. Since the Institute’s founding, it has maintained a permanent balance between basic and applied research. Its main lines of research fall into three broad fields: logic, reasoning and research; reasoning and case-based learning, and intelligent, multi-agent agents and systems. The ultimate aim of this series of lectures is to reveal to the general public the fascinating world of Artificial Intelligence and its challenges.

Cycle: SCIENCE ON MONDAY: Artificial intelligence, today and tomorrow

Organized by: Residencia de Investigadores, Delegación en Cataluña CSIC, Instituto de Investigación en Inteligencia Artificial (IIIA-CSIC)