Part 5 of our ground-breaking series the World Transformed, this program first aired July 21 2009.

Original description follows:

The World Transformed, Part 5

Are the robots going to take over?

The Matrix and Terminator movies present a nightmare world in which artificially intelligent machines pit themselves against humanity with devastating consequences. Could something like that really happen?

Phil Bowermaster and Stephen Gordon welcome a panel of leading thinkers on artificial intelligence to explore these issues:

In the near future, is machine intelligence going to equal or overtake human intelligence in terms of speed and capability?

If so, what can we do to make sure these new intelligences are on our side?

Eliezer Yudkowsky is the world's foremost researcher on Friendly AI and recursive self-improvement. He is a research fellow with the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence.

James Hughes is the Executive Director of the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, and he is the producer and host of the weekly syndicated public affairs talk show Changesurfer Radio

Ben Goertzel is the chief science officer and acting CEO of Novamente. He is the Director of Research for the Singularity Institute for Artificial Intelligence.