Scientists investigate chances of robots taking over

A potential robot uprising has been the basis for many science fiction plots – and a few Terminator films – but the scenario could be getting closer to home, according to researchers at Cambridge.

Scientists from the university’s Centre for the Study of Existential Risk have began investigating whether technology could end up destroying human civilisation and have warned that dismissing a robot uprising would be “dangerous”.

Cambridge philosophy professor Huw Price, who co-founded the project, told AFP:

Albert Einstein once said that it had “become appallingly obvious that our technology has exceeded our humanity” – this latest research could tell us how dangerous it might turn out to be.