Prof Stephen Hawking, one of Britain’s pre-eminent scientists, has previously warned that the development of artificial intelligence (AI) «could spell the end of the human race«.

However, Prof Alan Winfield, a world renowned professor of robot ethics from the Bristol Robotics Lab, told BBC Hardtalk’sStephen Sackur the bigger danger was «artificial stupidity».

Worries about robots taking over and destroying people came from science fiction, said Prof Winfield.

«We are worrying about an extraordinarily unlikely event,» he said, adding there were things to worry about.

«We need to worry about jobs, we need to worry about weaponisation of AI, we need to worry about standards in driverless cars, in care robots, in medical diagnosis AI.»