Are we ready for the future?

Do you feel happy discussing your health symptoms with a bot?  Well, virtual consultations on the phone with a bot are likely to become commonplace as the NHS struggles to meet demands.
 
That’s what Mark Britnell, government adviser to over 70 countries, told us today at the Hay Festival.
 
By 2030 the world will be short of 15 million health care workers. And artificial intelligence will be used increasingly to help fill this gap.
 
 
Leading the field is China.
He returned last weekend from Beijing and he was intrigued to find when he gave his lecture that it was simulatneously translated into Chinese on the screen behind him while translators also worked on it.
 
 When he asked why he was told they were there to correct the machine to enable it do more deep learning.
 
 
Already machines are far more intelligent than us in some areas but they lack common sense- and building that into them is one of the great challenges facing developers today.