WHEN AI GOES WRONG

Artificial intelligence allows machines to think like humans, at least in theory. Here are seven instances when these smart computers did not function as planned

- AILSA HARVEY

Robot escape

In 2016, a Russian robot called Promobot IR77 demonstrated how machines can navigate the world without human assistance when it became a persistent escape artist.

The robot, which was designed to interact with humans as a tour guide, fled its laboratory in Perm,

Russia, after a researcher left the door open. IR77 travelled 50 metres across nearby roads and caused a traffic jam before running out of battery power and being returned to the laboratory.

After the initial daring escape, the scientists attempted to reprogram the robot, but it kept moving in the same direction, towards the door it successfully fled through. Although in the first instance the robot escaped because there was nothing to stop it, its subsequent escape attempts showed that the computer used its memory to target the same route. Their lack of control over the robot’s intentions led the scientists to shut the project down.

Artificial evidence

When a man named Roberto Mata attended court with his lawyers, accusing Avianca Airlines of injuring him with a metal serving cart on board a flight, he would have assumed that his lawyers were well equipped to support him. However, the lawyers had consulted the AI chatbot ChatGPT to research similar cases instead of using reliable sources.

Six cases that they referred to in court to demonstrate similar events and punishments were found to be complete fiction, made up by the chatbot. The lawyer claimed that he thought ChatGPT was a search engine, rather than the language-generating tool it is. ChatGPT draws information from an online database, but often misinterprets the data and can relay elements incorrectly. After this court case, the court introduced a new stage in their proceedings whereby lawyers have to state that ‘no portion of any filing will be drafted by generative artificial intelligence’.

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