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We let machines decide many of our day to day decisions - which is the fastest way to get to my destination? What song should I play next, which TV series would I like?
But what happens if artificial intelligence steps in to make even harder decisions for us? Which treatment should a patient have, what sentence should a criminal receive?
These are the issues explored by Australian IT expert Toby Walsh in his new book, Machines Behaving Badly.
Toby is a Laureate Fellow and Scientia Professor of Artificial Intelligence at the University of New South Wales and CSIRO Data61.
The book looks at how AI is being built and developed by a small group of people with their own flaws and biases, controlled by multi-billion dollar companies, with little to no regulation or oversight.
Yet if we could address some of these issues now, Toby Walsh argues, AI could usefully liberate us from what he calls the four Ds: the dirty, dull, difficult and dangerous.
Toby Walsh is appearing at the Auckland Writers Festival next month.
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