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Artificial Intelligence:

can it tell lies?

Science fiction and conspiracy movies portray AI as a threat to society, the
individual and even the human race. Is that realistic? RICHARD HARVEY

explains the possibilities

HE best question asked during a lecture this
year,” he says, “is whether I can perceive a
Tsituation in which an Artificial Intelligence is
trained to tell lies. I am not sure I have a full answer
to that yet.

“Of course there is a trivial response, which is we
can train AI to learn anything – black is white, if
you like. Indeed, there have been recent scandals
in which AIs have been instructed to recognise
white people but not black people, so this could
be taken literally. But the questioner meant it in a
deep way – whether there are times when it would
be correct for an AI to tell a fib.

“For example, if an automatic diagnosis system
recognises someone has a fatal but incurable
disease, would it be correct to conceal it,
Richard Harvey is the second WCIT Professor of IT at

BEQUEST from Sir Thomas Gresham’s Gresham College, and Professor of AI at the
estate in 1597 founded the college; a University of East Anglia
A similar legacy also founded the City’s even if asked a direct question? Or if the AI is
Royal Exchange. 'unconfident' and the stakes are high, is it right

Gresham College ran for almost 400 years with to speculate an answer? There has been some
professors in only seven subjects which, over work done on this, but it warrants much more
the years, have included luminaries such as Sir attention.”
Christopher Wren (Astronomy), Robert Hooke
(Geometry), Chris Whitty (Physic), John Taverner The topic is a broad one, and the questions
(Music), Cecil Day-Lewis (Rhetoric), Bishop challenging, admits Professor Harvey.
Richard Chartres (Divinity) and Richard Susskind
(Law). More recently, professorships have been “We had an expert on digital money on the line
added in Business, Environment and IT. during my lecture on 'Cashless Society'. His view
was that cash represented an economic 'public
The original building survived the Great Fire good', and therefore a cashless society represented
and saw the establishment of The Royal Society an undesirable privatisation. My view was that
on its premises; the College now delivers 130 cashless will happen, and the question is therefore
lectures a year from its new site in Barnard’s Inn.
how will it transpire safely? I think I eventually
persuaded him. He also had some thoughts on

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