Chaired by Channel 4’s Science Editor Tom Clarke, four experts will debate the proposition: ‘This House believes it is inevitable that, within 25 years, a patent will be filed and granted without human intervention.’
Speaking for the proposition will be Chrissie Lightfoot, lawyer, entrepreneur, AI commentator, futurist and author and Calum Chace, author of the novel Pandora’s Brain and the non-fiction survey of the subject, Surviving AI.
Lightfoot warned: “It is inevitable that AI and robots will support us positively in our current roles. They already do, but eventually they may replace us entirely in carrying out particular tasks once AI exceeds human intelligence; we’re talking a handful of years here, not decades.”
Chace added: “If, in the next few decades, AI causes widespread technological unemployment, it will lead to an economic singularity – a point at which the normal rules of economics break down. It will not only be manual workers and truck drivers who are out of work; it will also be highly-paid professionals.”
Speaking against the motion will be Nigel Hanley, Senior Patent Examiner with the Intellectual Property Office and Ilya Kazi, a Chartered Patent Attorney and partner at leading intellectual property firm Matthys & Squire.
Kazi said:“Artificial Intelligence will become increasingly important in the workplace and will perform some tasks, but I think we are wrong to see it as a threat.Tractors replaced manual labour, robots transformed assembly lines, but they create new industries themselves and free people to do other things. There will always be a role for creative and strategic human intelligence.”
Hanley concluded: “There are a whole host of interesting issues to explore for the users of the patent system such as how it might affect public trust which is central to the success of the system.”
