How to Build a Human

Artificial intelligence,

for years a dream of scientists and Hollywood producers...

Hi. Hello, Caleb.

...but also the violent and destructive stuff of nightmares.

A brand-new synthetic. 'That's me, Gemma Chan.'

I'm now in set-up mode.

'I play a robot in the futuristic sci-fi drama, Humans.'

I'm now securely bonded to you as my primary user.

As the development of artificial intelligence accelerates and

starts to pervade every aspect of our lives...

I'm hoping to find out whether the world depicted in science-fiction

is 10 years away, 100 years away or closer than we think.

I'm going to meet some of the greatest minds in science.

They're divided.

Some think AI holds the key to a safe and prosperous future.

I see AI as the opportunity, actually,

to unlock humanity's full potential.

Others think the nightmare may just be about to begin.

We're worried that this will come out too soon, people will die.

Once you have a kind of super-intelligent genie that's out

of the bottle, it might not be possible to put it back in again.

To see just how far we can take the power of AI, we're conducting

a unique experiment, building a robot version of me.

This is really the first time we've tried this, so it's very, very new.

It's really quite uncanny.

'A robot that looks like me is one thing...' That's my nose.

'..But can it harness the power of artificial intelligence to

'actually think like me?'

I like the taste of cheese.

'Can we build a human?'

It's so strange.

Hi. Hello. Nice to meet you.

'Day one of the robot build and we need a body to house its brain.'

Welcome to Millennium FX.

Thank you, thanks for having us.

Millennium FX is one of Europe's leading suppliers of

prosthetics, animatronics and specialist make-up.

My goodness. This is something that we do a lot at Millennium.

You know, babies come up in TV shows a lot but you can't film on

babies for very long,

so we produce these lifelike babies so that people can hold them.

So weird!

The closer something is to looking human, the weirder it feels.

It's what we call the uncanny valley,

where your mind kind of knows, kind of knows,

that no matter how perfect something is,

no matter how good the movement is or how realistic it looks,

your mind knows that there's something not quite right.

I think I'm just going to put...put her down.

'Making a silicon duplicate will enable the robot builders to

'create a lifelike skin.'

A, E, I, O, U.

'My double will need to have hundreds of facial expressions just

'like me and they'll need to be in sync with what the artificial

'brain is thinking.'

Hi, lovely to meet you.

'Time for me to get my face copied.'

We're going to have you 3-D scanned.

Kate Walshe is the producer in charge.

Today we're going to try and watch you as closely as possible and see

if we can pick up on all the subtle expressions and movements of your face.

I'm intrigued to see how far we can go and how lifelike

we can make it.

I really have no idea what to expect.

Three, two, one, scanning.

It's so cool.

This is the room where we'll be doing your head cast and on

the wall behind you are some of the people who have had

the pleasure of life casting before.

Is that Gordon Ramsay there? It is, yes.

That's it, perfect.

And if you just want to open your mouth just

a fraction and just blow out gently. That's it.

Keep your eyes nice and relaxed. You're doing fantastically.

The cast consists of two different types of silicon and is

finished off with a traditional plaster shell.

One, two, three, great shot. Well done.

The whole process needs to be quick as, after 20 minutes, the heat

becomes intolerable.

Just going to whip that off. That's great. That's a great cast.

You did really, really, really well. Great, thank you.

'While the team will need to turn silicon into something that

'resembles me, a bigger challenge will be to create its mind.

'For that, the robot needs artificial intelligence,

'defined by computer scientists as a machine having the capability

'to make a humanlike decision.'

Thank you so much for agreeing to talk to us today.

'Oxford Professor of philosophy, Nick Bostrom,

'is one of the world's leading experts in Al.'

So the goal of AI, artificial intelligence, has all along,

since its beginnings in the '50s,

been to make machines that have the same general purpose, smartness that

we humans have, they can do all the things that the human brain can do.

From smartphones to share prices,

from online customer support to CCTV, we're

now surrounded by so much of it,

we've started to take it for granted.

AI is a general-purpose technology.

It can go through any sector - the economy, it can go through

health care and entertainment, medicine, defence,

you name it, it could

think of ways in which processes could be improved by being smarter.

Machines are being developed as soldiers, mastering real-time

translations using the latest in word-recognition software.

Can you hear me in French?

TRANSLATED IN FRENCH

And AI could soon have a significant role in the legal system.

An Al judge that was shadowing cases from

the European Court of Human Rights

recently came up with the same decision as

the human judge in four out of five cases.

The medical profession is also making use of it.

These Canadian scientists have recently been to the UK to

sell an AI diagnostic tool that they say can identify a tumour instantly

and accurately without the need for a biopsy and with immediate results.

Just like a human, the machine got trained on multiple thousands

of images to get an accuracy level.

Not only is it less invasive and quicker but it could save

the NHS millions of pounds if introduced.

Some of us are already entrusting our lives to AI.

This is the Tesla Model S on the market for a cool £100,000.

Noel Sharkey is an academic specialising in Al and is

interested in how autonomous decision-making will affect us all.

You're going to take your hands off.

I've arranged to meet him on a test track to try out one of

the car's most impressive features - the ability to drive itself

using artificial intelligence.

Right, the hands are coming off. The hands are off.

Whoa! We're approaching a bend. Oh.

BEEPING

Oh, my goodness!

See, that...it nearly took us off the road there. Yes!

I know this is meant to be a less stressful driving experience...

I'm sweating! I'm sweating. Of course.

I'm sweating. Oh, my goodness. You try being the passenger!

Semi-autonomous cars like this are really quite controversial.

Especially in the field of robotics.

And we really need much broader societal debate.

The UK Government's rolling out autonomous cars and they

haven't really debated as to whether people want it or not.

This controversy has been fuelled by drivers in America ignoring

the company's safety guidelines and uploading outrageous clips to

the internet.

But I think what puts it all in perspective is the recent

fatal crash in the USA.

Yes, I remember hearing something about that in the news.

'Earlier this year, a driver crashed and died,

'allegedly whilst watching a Harry Potter film.

'His car hit the underside of a trailer at 74mph.'

It pulled out right in front of it, bright white trailer,

bright white sky, very sunny, and the camera couldn't detect

the trailer and that's why it ran into it.

And I suppose the more autonomous vehicles you have on the road,

you know, the likelihood of incidents like that or

accidents - they're bound to happen.

It's measuring the space now with its sensors I think.

But while Tesla say AI cars will have fewer accidents...

...ultimately, we won't be in control.

Look, it's correcting itself as well!

So you imagine what's going to happen when they really are fully

autonomous because you're going to have to delegate all your driving

decisions to them. Life-and-death decisions.

It could well be life-and-death decisions.

Look, do you see this van coming down here?

Well, we're just driving along here on that side in this direction.

The van comes hammering at us for some reason and you've got

that women there and a pushchair, and she's going to be hit if

we avoid it.

The car has to make a decision to take the hit or

to kill the mother and baby. What would you do?

I don't know! I don't know what I would do in that split second.

That's a really difficult decision for anyone to make,

for a human to make. How can a car decide which life is more valuable?

I don't think it should, myself.

The robot we're building won't need to make life-and-death decisions.

But it will have to harness Al's decision-making powers to

think like me.

It's being built on a modest industrial estate on

the outskirts of Penryn, Cornwall.

I wasn't expecting the hub of

the robot build to be next to a B&Q.

I'm wondering if it's going to be a...mop head.

'Will Jackson is at the forefront of constructing humanlike robots.'

Well, hello. Hello.

'To be convincing, robots need to reason,

'learn and understand so they can react almost instinctively like us.'

Hello, how are you? I'm very well, thank you, how are you?

I'm very well, thank you. He's great.

He's very much a robot,

you definitely know that this is a machine, not a person.

He's pretty limited.

'Will plans to apply the knowledge acquired building RoboThespian RT4

'as a basis for constructing the AI version of me.

'In order to be convincing,

'the robot will need to master the complexity of language.'

So the first thing that's going to happen is somebody's going to

speak to the robot and we've got microphones in the ears that

pick up the sound.

At that point, it's just sound, it doesn't mean anything.

So we have to turn the sound into words, into texts.