Robots to be more intelligent than humans in 40 years

Intel's crystal ball: comes complete with that plunky music
Intel's crystal ball: comes complete with that plunky music

Intel has had a little chat about the future of the computing and robotics at the recent IDF event, and has come out with some alarming facts.

The firm predicts in just over 40 years machines may have the reasoning power of humans, though stopped short of saying they will become our masters and we will be forced to do their bidding.

"The industry has taken much greater strides than anyone ever imagined 40 years ago," said Justin Rattner, CTO of Intel said.

"There is speculation that we may be approaching an inflection point where the rate of technology advancements is accelerating at an exponential rate, and machines could even overtake humans in their ability to reason, in the not so distant future."

Lightbulbs to laptops

Intel also demoed the ability to power a 60W lightbulb without wires, which it claims could be used to wirelessly power items like laptops safely and quickly.

The system would work by transmitting the electricity over certain frequencies, by using strongly coupled resonators.

However, this technology has been mooted for nearly a century thanks to Niklas Tesla, so it will remain to be seen whether Intel finally crack it.

Other little gems spoken about were morphing computers that could change shape depending on the user's needs, and improvements to robots that could integrate them into society in the near future.

Read all about the exciting developments over at Intel's website, where YOU TOO could glimpse into the future.

Gareth Beavis
Formerly Global Editor in Chief

Gareth has been part of the consumer technology world in a career spanning three decades. He started life as a staff writer on the fledgling TechRadar, and has grown with the site (primarily as phones, tablets and wearables editor) until becoming Global Editor in Chief in 2018. Gareth has written over 4,000 articles for TechRadar, has contributed expert insight to a number of other publications, chaired panels on zeitgeist technologies, presented at the Gadget Show Live as well as representing the brand on TV and radio for multiple channels including Sky, BBC, ITV and Al-Jazeera. Passionate about fitness, he can bore anyone rigid about stress management, sleep tracking, heart rate variance as well as bemoaning something about the latest iPhone, Galaxy or OLED TV.