The Future of AI(Artificial Intelligence)

In just the last few years, “machine learning” has come to seem like the new path forward. From SIRI to self-driving cars, artificial intelligence (AI) is progressing rapidly. Everyone is familiar with Apple's personal assistant, Siri. She's the friendly voice-activated computer that we interact with on a daily basis. She helps us find information, gives us directions, add events to our calendars, helps us send messages and so on.

HOW CAN AI BE DANGEROUS?

The AI is programmed to do something beneficial, but it develops a destructive method for achieving its goal. This can happen whenever we fail to fully align the AI’s goals with ours, which is strikingly difficult.

If you ask an obedient intelligent car to take you to the airport as fast as possible, it might get you there chased by helicopters and covered in vomit, doing not what you wanted but literally what you asked for. It is because AI has the potential to become more intelligent than any human, we have no surefire way of predicting how it will behave.

There will be jobs gained because of AI. There will also be jobs lost because of it. Any job which features repetitive tasks as part of its duties is at-risk of being replaced by an artificial intelligence in the future. In 2017, Gartner predicted that 500,000 net jobs would be created because of AI. On the other end of the spectrum, up to 900,000 jobs could be lost because of it. Those figures are for jobs only within the United States.

Autonomous weapons are artificial intelligence systems that are programmed to kill. In the hands of the wrong person, these weapons could easily cause mass casualties. Moreover, an AI arms race could inadvertently lead to an AI war that also results in mass casualties. To avoid being thwarted by the enemy, these weapons would be designed to be extremely difficult to simply “turn off,” so humans could plausibly lose control of such a situation. This risk is one that’s present even with narrow AI, but grows as levels of AI intelligence and autonomy increase.

How Will AI Technology Change Our Lives on a Personal Level?

Artificial intelligence has already made its way into many homes, but it will soon be indispensable in most households. As we move closer toward becoming a technologically driven society, AI applications will fulfill the promise that computers would make our lives easier. AI technology will help us live happier and healthier lives, while also helping us conserve time, energy, and money.

What AI can do to help us?

Many people already make use of AI-driven personal assistants. Amazon’s Echo and Alexa currently dominate the market, but the competition is beginning to offer more virtual assistants to choose from. What can they do for you? Currently, they can provide information, such as a weather report, and order services, such as place your weekly pizza delivery order.

AI is not a futuristic vision, but rather something that is here today and being integrated with and deployed into a variety of sectors. This includes fields such as finance, national security, health care, criminal justice, transportation, and smart cities. There are numerous examples where AI already is making an impact on the world and augmenting human capabilities in significant ways.

It is a common belief that AI will one day be the end of humanity and robots and machines will take over the planet completely and permanently.

However, what is usually ignored is the fact that the incorporation of AI in our daily lives helps free us of all responsibilities that we do not want or need.

Needless to say, we cannot let superior intelligence blindly control us. However, not employing its benefits for our advantage would be an equally ignorant thing to do.