Robots at work

From taking tours to reducing traffic, the influence of robots on cities is growing fast. But it might be scratching the surface of what’s possible.

Can I help you with that?

Chatbots cut costs for firms online, but often infuriate their unfortunate customers.

Deep journalism

A new tool that uses machine and deep-learning-based natural language processing technologies to analyse assigned documents can highlight ideas and issues which require more attention.

Nothing but the truth

Artificial intelligence is making inroads into every sphere of society, even that most human area of justice.

Cyber-crime hampers AI in the Asia-Pacific

There is a significant gap between the AI ambitions of Asia Pacific countries and the cyber resilience of the technology they are deploying.

Will computers achieve consciousness?

While the speed and power of computing systems continue to grow, and new forms such as quantum computing are on the horizon, the idea that machines will achieve consciousness one day may be misplaced.

We need AI – and AI needs humanising

Australia should harness expertise from both the ‘soft’ and ‘hard’ sciences to code our humanity into the artificial intelligence being integrated into our defence services.

Welcome to the world of social robots

Social robotics can make social life more accessible to a greater diversity of people, according to Professor Mari Velonaki of the University of New South Wales.

Life, but not as we know it?

The recent claim that Google’s chatbot LamDA had an existential discussion with a senior software engineer has grabbed the world’s attention.

The uncanny valley of digital assistants

Technology companies go to great lengths to make their digital assistants appear human to encourage their use and reap data from them, but this can leave users in an unsettling ‘uncanny valley’ between the realms of humans and machines.

Patents from the machine

The day is coming – some say has already arrived – when artificial intelligence starts to invent things that its human creators could not. But our laws are lagging behind this technology, UNSW experts say.

On the brink of the singularity

The increasing sophistication of hardware and software to augment our capabilities is beginning to blur the boundaries between man and machine, raising a host of physical possibilities and ethical questions.