Intelligent Machines: What does Facebook want with AI?

15 September 2015

 
• From the sectionTechnology

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These days study into artificial intelligence research is no longer the preserve of universities - the big technology firms are also keen to get involved.

Google, Facebook and others are busy opening AI labs and poaching some of the most talented university professors to head them up.

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Image captionYann LeCun thinks fears about AI are overblown

Prof Yann LeCun is a hugely influential force in the field of Deep Learning and is now director of AI research at Facebook.

He spoke to the BBC about what the social network is doing with the technology and why he thinks Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking are wrong in their predictions about AI destroying humanity and here are his thoughts.

What is artificial intelligence?

It is the ability of a machine to do things that we deem intelligent behaviour for people or animals. Increasingly it has become the ability for machines to learn by themselves and improve their own performance.

We hear a lot about machines learning but are they really thinking?

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Image captionCan a machine ever think in the way humans understand the activity?

The machines that we have at the moment are very primitive in a way. Some of them, to some extent, emulate the basic principles of how the brain works - they are not at all a carbon copy of brain circuits but they have a little bit of the same flavour.