Will artificial intelligence ever match human intelligence?

The idea of artificial intelligence (AI) has been back in the news because of another high-profile match between a computer and a human.

In this case, the match was on the American quiz show Jeopardy, and the computer, called Watson, came out on top.

What is it?
There have been lots of portrayals of artificial intelligence in films and on TV: Hal 9000 in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey; the giant supercomputer Deep Thought in Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy; and the robotic toy child David in Steven Spielberg’s 2001 film AI.

Real examples have existed too, most notably in gaming contests. The IBM chess computer Deep Blue beat then-world champion Garry Kasparov in May 1997, and Watson, also an IBM computer, did similarly well.

Artificial intelligence as a discipline actually comprises several fields of mathematics, computer science and engineering. The idea is to create a machine that will, one day, be as ‘intelligent’ as a human, or more so.

Brute force
Artificial intelligence is one of the most difficult problems in computer science. While our brains are relatively simple in physical terms, and computers are better at some tasks such as multiplying big numbers together, our brains are much better at certain tasks than any computer ever built.


If you have filled in a form online you will probably have come across a Captcha, a picture of a word that has been distorted so it’s hard to read, as shown.

Computers find this impossible to read, even though humans read it relatively easily. Captchas are designed to prevent automated computer systems from repeatedly filling in forms to send spam – they depend on the computers’ lack of intelligence, because only humans can read them.


Deep Blue made use of one advantage computers have over humans: processing power.

When humans play chess, we work out strategy by imagining making a move, imagining how our opponent will move and trying to figure out how the board will look a few moves down the line.

The problem is that, given the range of possible moves, even looking two moves ahead produces a large number of potential outcomes. Deep Blue had enough processing power to be able to look far enough in advance to gain an advantage: it was able to play out every combination of moves prior to making its own move.