Artificial intelligence is shaping the future of humanity across nearly every industry. It is already the main driver of emerging technologies like big data, robotics and IoT, and it will continue to act as a technological innovator for the foreseeable future.
AI is important because it forms the very foundation of computer learning. Through AI, computers have the ability to harness massive amounts of data and use their learned intelligence to make optimal decisions and discoveries in fractions of the time that it would take humans.
Evolution of AI
After more than seven decades marked by hoopla and sporadic dormancy during a multi-wave evolutionary period that began with so-called “knowledge engineering,” progressed to model- and algorithm-based machine learning and is increasingly focused on perception, reasoning and generalization, AI has re-taken center stage as never before.
And it won’t cede the spotlight anytime soon
War robots & nefarious motives: how humans might use AGI is the real threat
- Most AGI researchers expect AGI within decades, and if we just bumble into this unprepared, it will probably be the biggest mistake in human history.
- Time to understand what we’re creating and how we’re going to incorporate it into society might be exactly what we need
- It’s very hard to predict when these conceptual breakthroughs are going to happen, but whenever they do, it’s important to prepare
- That means starting or continuing discussions about the ethical use of A.I. and whether it should be regulated
Which Industries will change due to AI?
- Transportation: Although it could take some time to perfect them, autonomous cars will one day ferry us from place to place.
- Manufacturing: AI powered robots work alongside humans to perform a limited range of tasks like assembly and stacking, and predictive analysis sensors keep equipment running smoothly.
- Healthcare: In the comparatively AI-nascent field of healthcare, diseases are more quickly and accurately diagnosed, drug discovery is sped up and streamlined, virtual nursing assistants monitor patients and big data analysis helps to create a more personalized patient experience.
- Education: Textbooks are digitized with the help of AI, early-stage virtual tutors assist human instructors and facial analysis gauges the emotions of students to help determine who’s struggling or bored and better tailor the experience to their individual needs.
- Media: Journalism is harnessing AI, too, and will continue to benefit from it. Bloomberg uses Cyborg technology to help make quick sense of complex financial reports.
- Customer Service: Google is working on an AI assistant that can place human-like calls to make appointments at, say, your neighborhood hair salon. In addition to words, the system understands context and nuance.
The Fantastical Possibilities of Artificial General Intelligence
- “Human-level AI,” also known as artificial general intelligence, has long been fodder for fantasy
- The chances of it being realized anytime soon or at all are slim
- Major breakthroughs still have to happen before we reach anything that resembles human level AI
- If that goal is reached, we would have systems that could then read and understand everything the human race has ever written, and this is something that a human being can’t do
AI’s Impact on the Workforce
- The bottom 90% of people in the developing world will be badly hurt by job displacement
- Routine jobs will likely go faster than jobs involving craft and diversity.
- Those with jobs that involve repetitive or routine tasks must learn new skills so as not to be left by the wayside
- One of the absolute prerequisites for AI to be successful in many [areas] is that we invest tremendously in education to retrain people for new jobs
- People need to learn about programming like they learn a new language
- The transition between jobs going away and new ones coming is not as painless as people like to think
Is AGI Really an existential threat to humanity?
- Leading AI figures subscribe to the “singularity,” a scenario in which superintelligent machines take over and permanently alter human existence through enslavement or eradication.
- Elon Musk has warned that AGI is humanity’s biggest existential threat, calling efforts to bring it about “summoning the demon.”
- While murderous machines may well remain fodder for fiction, many believe they will eventually supplant humans in various ways.
Rewards and punishment: AI’s near-future ramifications
- Reinforcement learning: deals in rewards and punishment rather than labeled data
- Generative adversarial networks: allow computer algorithms to create rather than merely assess by pitting two nets against each other
- Original image or audio generation that’s based on learning about a certain subject like celebrities or a particular type of music
- On a far grander scale, AI is poised to have a major effect on sustainability, climate change and environmental issues
AI and The future of privacy & human rights
- Much has been made of the fact that AI’s reliance on big data is already impacting privacy in a major way
- Without proper regulations and self-imposed limitations, critics argue, the situation will get even worse
- Apple CEO Tim Cook derided Google and Facebook for greed-driven data mining
- If implemented responsibly, AI can benefit society. However, there is a real risk that commercial and state use has a detrimental impact on human rights
