Dr Armstrong has called for AI safeguards, a move which has previously been welcomed by Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk and others

Machines could deliberately wipe out the human race or do so by accidenly misinterpreting an instruction,

From The Terminator to Transcendence, Hollywood sci-fi films have taught us not to trust robots.

Now one expert has made a prediction that's just as terrifying as the bleakest plot: that in the future, intelligent robots will be smarter and faster than humans, take over the running of countries and have the ability to wipe us out altogether.

Dr Stuart Armstrong believes it’s a race against time to develop safeguards around artificial intelligence research, before robots outwit us - or even accidentally cause our demise.

Dr Stuart Armstrong has made a prediction just as terrifying as the bleakest Terminator (stock image) plot: that in the uture, intelligent robots will be smarter and faster than humans, with the ability to wipe us out altogether

Speaking at a debate on artificial intelligence in London, he warned that humans could be wiped out even if robots are instructed to protect people.

Dr Armstrong, based at the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University, predicted that robots will be increasingly integral to our everyday lives, doing menial tasks, but will eventually make humans redundant and take over,The Telegraph reported.

He believes machines will work at speeds inconceivable to the human brain and will skip communicating with humans to take control of the economy and financial markets, transport, healthcare and more.

The robots will have what’s known as artificial general intelligence (AGI), enabling them to do much more than carry out specific and limited tasks.

Dr Stuart Armstrong believes it’s a race against time to develop safeguards around artificial intelligence research, before robots outwit us (such as in the film Transcendence (screenshot pictured), or even accidently cause our demise

GOOGLE SETS UP AI ETHICS BOARD TO CURB THE RISE OF THE ROBOTS Google has set up an ethics board to oversee its work in artificial intelligence. The search giant has recently bought several robotics companies, along with Deep Mind, a British firm creating software that tries to help computers think like humans. One of its founders warned artificial intelligence is 'number one risk for this century,' and believes it could play a part in human extinction. 'Eventually, I think human extinction will probably occur, and technology will likely play a part in this,' DeepMind's Shane Legg said in a recent interview. Among all forms of technology that could wipe out the human species, he singled out artificial intelligence, or AI, as the 'number 1 risk for this century.' The ethics board, revealed by web site The Information, is to ensure the projects are not abused. Neuroscientist Demis Hassabis, 37, founded DeepMind two years ago with the aim of trying to help computers think like humans. Advertisement

‘Anything you can imagine the human race doing over the next 100 years there's the possibility AGI will do very, very fast,’ he said.

Dr Armstrong is concerned that a simple instruction to an AGI to ‘prevent human suffering’ could be interpreted by a super computer as ‘kill all humans’ or that ‘keep humans safe’ could lead to machines locking people up.

‘There is a risk of this kind of pernicious behaviour by an AI,' he said, adding that human language is subtle and can be easily misinterpreted.

‘You can give AI controls, and it will be under the controls it was given. But these may not be the controls that were meant.’

He predicts that it will be difficult to tell whether a machine has deadly ‘intentions’ or not and could act as if it is a benefit to humanity right until the point it takes control of all functions.

Professor Stephen Hawking has previously told the BBC: 'The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.'

This echoes claims he made earlier in the year when he said success in creating AI 'would be the biggest event in human history, [but] unfortunately, it might also be the last.'

In November, Elon Musk, the entrepreneur behind Space-X and Tesla, warned that the risk of 'something seriously dangerous happening' as a result of machines with artificial intelligence, could be in as few as five years.

He has previously linked the development of autonomous, thinking machines, to 'summoning the demon'.

Dr Armstrong, of the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University, predicted that robots will be increasingly integral to our everyday lives (illustrated with a stock image), doing menial tasks, but will eventually make humans redundant and take over

Speaking at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) AeroAstro Centennial Symposium in October last year, Musk described artificial intelligence as our 'biggest existential threat'.

He said: 'I think we should be very careful about artificial intelligence. If I had to guess at what our biggest existential threat is, it's probably that. So we need to be very careful with artificial intelligence.

'With artificial intelligence we're summoning the demon. You know those stories where there's the guy with the pentagram, and the holy water, and … he's sure he can control the demon? Doesn't work out.'

While Dr Armstrong acknowledges that super intelligent computers could find cures for cancer and other illnesses, for example, but said that mankind is now in a race to create safe artificially intelligent machines, before it’s too late.

One suggestion is to teach robots a moral code, but Dr Armstrong is pessimistic this will work because humans find it hard to separate right and wrong and are often not good role models when it comes to exemplary behaviour.

A group of scientists and entrepreneurs, including Elon Musk and Professor Hawking signed an open letter in January promising to ensure AI research benefits humanity.

The letter warns that without safeguards on intelligent machines, mankind could be heading for a dark future.

The document, drafted by the Future of Life Institute, said scientists should seek to head off risks that could wipe out mankind.

Professor Stephen Hawking (pictured) has previously told the BBC : 'The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race'

Dr Armstrong is concerned that a simple instruction to an artificially intelligent machine to ‘prevent human suffering’ could be interpreted by a super computer as ‘kill all humans’

The authors say there is a 'broad consensus' that AI research is making good progress and would have a growing impact on society.

It highlights speech recognition, image analysis, driverless cars, translation and robot motion as having benefited from the research.

'The potential benefits are huge, since everything that civilisation has to offer is a product of human intelligence; we cannot predict what we might achieve when this intelligence is magnified by the tools AI may provide, but the eradication of disease and poverty are not unfathomable,' the authors write.

But they issued a stark warning that research into the rewards of AI had to be matched with an equal effort to avoid the potential damage it could wreak.

For instance, in the short term, it claims AI may put millions of people out of work.

In the long term, it could have the potential to play out like a fictional dystopias in which intelligence greater than humans could begin acting against their programming.

'Our AI systems must do what we want them to do,' the letter says.

'Many economists and computer scientists agree that there is valuable research to be done on how to maximise the economic benefits of AI while mitigating adverse effects, which could include increased inequality and unemployment.'