$5 Million Prize To Prove AI Is Actually Good For Humanity

In 2020, three speakers will appear onstage to deliver a TED talk (Technology, Entertainment, Design, a global set of conferences run by the private non-profit Sapling Foundation) and compete for $5 million (27.5 Crores). But these presenters will share a unique characteristic that sets them apart from TED talkers who came before them: They won’t be human.

Instead, the talks will be delivered by artificially intelligent systems, all of them finalists in a newly announced XPRIZE for cognitive computing. XPRIZE founder Peter Diamandis and IBM’s Watson chief David Kenny announced the new prize on stage at TED today.

But what that challenge is, Diamandis says, is up to the developers themselves. The winner of this competition will be chosen by the TED audience in 2020, when three finalist AIs, or AI-human partnerships, will take the stage to deliver a TED Talk about their work, to be put to a vote for the final prize.

Partnering with Qualcomm, X Prize is also running a $10 million competition to produce the real-life version of the medical tricorder from "Star Trek," which can diagnose health issues with the wave of a wand.

the goal of the challenge is to prove the potential for artificial intelligence to do good, not just evil. “The fact of the matter is, personally, I’m sick and tired of the dystopian conversation around artificial intelligence,” he said.

“Our belief is that artificial intelligence is one of the most important inventions the human race will ever create to take on humanity’s grand challenges. We want to demonstrate that to the world.”