How to Build a Human

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Artificial intelligence,

for years a dream of scientists and

Hollywood producers...

Hi. Hello, Caleb.

...but also the violent and

destructive stuff of nightmares.

A brand-new synthetic.

'That's me, Gemma Chan.'

I'm now in set-up mode.

'I play a robot in the futuristic

sci-fi drama, Humans.'

I'm now securely bonded to you

as my primary user.

As the development of artificial

intelligence accelerates and

starts to pervade every

aspect of our lives...

I'm hoping to find out whether the

world depicted in science-fiction

is 10 years away, 100 years away or

closer than we think.

I'm going to meet some of

the greatest minds in science.

They're divided.

Some think AI holds the key to

a safe and prosperous future.

I see AI as the opportunity,

actually,

to unlock humanity's full potential.

Others think the nightmare may

just be about to begin.

We're worried that this will come

out too soon, people will die.

Once you have a kind of

super-intelligent genie that's out

of the bottle, it might not be

possible to put it back in again.

To see just how far we can take

the power of AI, we're conducting

a unique experiment,

building a robot version of me.

This is really the first time we've

tried this, so it's very, very new.

It's really quite uncanny.

'A robot that looks like

me is one thing...' That's my nose.

'..But can it harness the power of

artificial intelligence to

'actually think like me?'

I like the taste of cheese.

'Can we build a human?'

It's so strange.

Hi. Hello. Nice to meet you.

'Day one of the robot build and

we need a body to house its brain.'

Welcome to Millennium FX.

Thank you, thanks for having us.

Millennium FX is one of Europe's

leading suppliers of

prosthetics, animatronics and

specialist make-up.

My goodness. This is something that

we do a lot at Millennium.

You know, babies come up in TV shows

a lot but you can't film on

babies for very long,

so we produce these lifelike babies

so that people can hold them.

So weird!

The closer something is to looking

human, the weirder it feels.

It's what we call

the uncanny valley,

where your mind kind of knows,

kind of knows,

that no matter how perfect

something is,

no matter how good the movement is

or how realistic it looks,

your mind knows that there's

something not quite right.

I think I'm just going to put...put

her down.

'Making a silicon duplicate will

enable the robot builders to

'create a lifelike skin.'

A, E, I, O, U.

'My double will need to have

hundreds of facial expressions just

'like me and they'll need to be in

sync with what the artificial

'brain is thinking.'

Hi, lovely to meet you.

'Time for me to get my face copied.'

We're going to have you 3-D scanned.

Kate Walshe is the producer

in charge.

Today we're going to try and watch

you as closely as possible and see

if we can pick up on all the subtle

expressions and movements of your face.

I'm intrigued to see how far we can

go and how lifelike

we can make it.

I really have

no idea what to expect.

Three, two, one, scanning.

It's so cool.

This is the room where we'll be

doing your head cast and on

the wall behind you are some of

the people who have had

the pleasure of life casting before.

Is that Gordon Ramsay there?

It is, yes.

That's it, perfect.

And if you just want to open

your mouth just

a fraction and just blow out gently.

That's it.

Keep your eyes nice and relaxed.

You're doing fantastically.

The cast consists of two different

types of silicon and is

finished off with

a traditional plaster shell.

One, two, three, great shot.

Well done.

The whole process needs to be quick

as, after 20 minutes, the heat

becomes intolerable.

Just going to whip that off.

That's great. That's a great cast.

You did really, really, really well.

Great, thank you.

'While the team will need to turn

silicon into something that

'resembles me, a bigger challenge

will be to create its mind.

'For that, the robot needs

artificial intelligence,

'defined by computer scientists as

a machine having the capability

'to make a humanlike decision.'

Thank you so much for agreeing

to talk to us today.

'Oxford Professor of philosophy,

Nick Bostrom,

'is one of the world's leading

experts in Al.'

So the goal of AI, artificial

intelligence, has all along,

since its beginnings in the '50s,

been to make machines that have the

same general purpose, smartness that

we humans have, they can do all the

things that the human brain can do.

From smartphones to share prices,

from online customer support

to CCTV, we're

now surrounded by so much of it,

we've started to take it for

granted.

AI is a general-purpose technology.

It can go through any sector -

the economy, it can go through

health care and entertainment,

medicine, defence,

you name it, it could

think of ways in which processes

could be improved by being smarter.

Machines are being developed as

soldiers, mastering real-time

translations using the latest in

word-recognition software.

Can you hear me in French?

TRANSLATED IN FRENCH

And AI could soon have a significant

role in the legal system.

An Al judge that was shadowing

cases from

the European Court of Human Rights

recently came up

with the same decision as

the human judge in four out of five

cases.

The medical profession is also

making use of it.

These Canadian scientists have

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