We have watched too many-movies. To our cinema-flamed imaginations the robots of the future are silken-voiced and pliant like Scarlett Johansson in Her, or wisecracking humanoids like Star Wars’ C-3PO, or-otherwise the murderous-Transformer toys of so many Arnold Schwarzenegger films. What they are not, not in our imaginations and not on screen, are exceptionally-clever algorithms.
They may lack Scarlett’s fembot charm, but such algorithms will transform the way we fight wars, combat extremism, respond to acts of terrorism and natural-disasters, how we manage our homes, protect our banks and manage surveillance and espionage.
Professor Nick Jennings, vice-provost of research at Imperial College London, has devoted his working life to artificial intelligence (AI), autonomous-computing and cybersecurity. He is the government’s former chief scientific advisor on national security, Regius professor of computer science at Southampton University, and has many letters after his name: CB, FREng, FIEEE, FBCS, FIET. The CB — Companion of the Order of Bath — is the most recent, given in the Queen’s New Year-Honours for services to national security science.
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