IBM computer stars in Cambridge debate on the dangers of AI

IBM’s fast-talking AI machine faces a huge new test: It’s taking part in a Cambridge University debate on the merits of the emerging technology that will feature some of the world’s best human minds.

Project Debater, as the IBM machine is known, will participate Thursday in a debate at the Cambridge Union featuring both computers and humans. At issue is whether AI will bring more harm than good to the world.

The Cambridge Union has been been hosting debates for more than two centuries, but this is the first contest to feature AI, said society president Rachel Tustin.

“As the oldest debating society in the world, the Union has always aimed to discuss the most topical and significant issues of the time,” Tustin said.

AI has the potential to power driverless cars and smart cities. But critics say the technology could perpetuate bias, put people out of work and even threaten human existence.

The IBM machine, which was defeated by a human in a one-on-one debate nine months ago, will deliver each team’s 4-minute opening speech using submissions sourced ahead of time from over 1,000 people.

The rebuttals by each side will be done by the human debaters, who will also deliver the closing arguments. A winner will be named based on which team persuades more audience members to its view.

The event will test Project Debater’s ability to work out whether submissions are for or against the motion, and assess which arguments are of better quality. It will also provide insight into whether the technology is able to detect redundancies, given that people will have made the same arguments using different words, said IBM engineer Noam Slonim.

The particular application that’s being used is known as Speech by Crowd, as it crowd sources opinions to formulate points of view about both sides of a debate.

Companies could use the technology to process customer feedback on their products or understand how thousands of employees view changes to corporate policy, according to Slonim.

It was recently used by officials in Lugano, Switzerland to crowd source opinions from the public on whether the city should invest in autonomous vehicles.

IBM plans to roll out Speech by Crowd to its clients in the coming year, said Slonim.

Project Debater in San Francisco

In the previous debate held in San Francisco in February, Project Debater failed to deliver convincing rebuttals in a debate about whether preschool should be subsidized.

Its arguments appeared out of order. For example, it saved its best counter punches for its closing statement. At that debate, Project Debater was given 15 minutes to process 400 million documents.

The winner in San Francisco was European debate champion, Harish Natarajan.

Natarajan will again take the stage on Thursday, joined by Professor Sylvie Delacroix of the University of Birmingham, Professor Neil Lawrence of Cambridge, and Sharmila Parmanand, a chief debate judge and PhD candidate at Cambridge.

The Cambridge Union counts Winston Churchill, Theodore Roosevelt, Bill Gates and Robert Downey Jr. among the famous figures it has hosted.

— Rachel Metz contributed to this report.