ARM owner: Robots will soon outsmart us

The Japanese owner of ARM believes robots will be smarter than humans in 30 years, by which time they will have IQs of 10,000.

Masayoshi Son, the founder and chief executive of SoftBank, said his belief in artificial intelligence drove last year’s £24 billion takeover of the Cambridge-based microchip designer.

“I bought ARM for $32 billion in cash. Why did I spend that much cash? Because I have a vision for the next 30 years. This is the day computer brain, artificial intelligence, surpasses mankind’s brain,” Son said at the Mobile World Congress trade show in Barcelona, which officially began today.

He also predicted the population of smart robots, including cars, would surpass the human population in the same timeframe.

Son revealed ARM was currently not able to defend its chips from “bad guys” attempting to hack into devices, including cars. “There are 500 ARM chips in a car. None of them are secure today,” Son said.

“If I’m a bad guy this could be a very dangerous way to attack society.”

He added: “That’s why we are putting a new security feature in all of the microchips.

“All of these devices have to be securely connected in the cloud,” he added.