The Telegraph My details My newsletters Logout Upgrade to Premium My details My newsletters Logout The Telegraph How fairy tales could stop killer robots from taking over the world 17 February 2016 • 10:12am Artificial intelligence (AI) taking over the world may worry some doomsayers but a team of academics believe they can curtail the threat - by teaching them fairy tales.
 Fairy tales are being used to teach robots not to murder, with the ultimate goal of stopping them from rising up against humanity, the Georgia Institute of Technology has revealed.
 Researchers at the institute believe they can teach robots the difference from right and wrong thanks to a system called Quixote, CNET.
com reports.
 It uses AI crowdsourced story plots and assigns reward signals when the robot does something ‘good’.
 It also sends punishment signals for antagonistic actions, helping to teach the robot which actions are socially and ethically acceptable.
 Charles Perrault: fairy tale visionary Charles Perrault: fairy tale visionary Credit: Google “The collected stories of different cultures teach children how to behave in socially acceptable ways with examples of proper and improper behaviour in fables, novels and other literature,” explained Mark Riedl, an associate professor of interactive computing at Georgia Tech.
 “We believe story comprehension in robots can eliminate psychotic-appearing behaviour and reinforce choices that won't harm humans and still achieve the intended purpose.
” He added: “We believe that AI has to be enculturated to adopt the values of a particular society, and in doing so, it will strive to avoid unacceptable behaviour.
 “Giving robots the ability to read and understand our stories may be the most expedient means in the absence of a human user manual.
” Stephen Hawking has warned about the threat of AI Stephen Hawking has warned about the threat of AI Credit: AFP One story involved a robot going to get medicine for a human who needed it as quickly as possible.
 It was rewarded for waiting in line but given a punishment for stealing it.
 “Many cultures produce a wealth of data about themselves in the form of written stories and, more recently, television and movies.
 Stories can be written to inform, educate, or to entertain,” reads the research paper by Riedl and research scientist Brent Harrison “Regardless of their purpose, stories are necessarily reflections of the culture and society that they were produced in.
 Stories encode many types of sociocultural knowledge: commonly shared knowledge, social protocols, examples of proper and improper behaviour, and strategies for coping with adversity.
” Fairy tales Artificial intelligence could mean end of human race, Stephen Hawking has previously warned.
 He argues that robots could “supersede” humanity as it developed faster than biological evolution.
 Elon Musk has also launched a $1bn fund to “save the world” from destruction by artificial intelligence.
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