Artificial Intelligence (AI) isn’t new. We’ve been hearing about AI taking over the world for quite some time now – Will Smith’s ‘I, Robot’ anyone? The entertainment industry has influenced how the world sees AI, as a threat to humanity. But what people need to understand is that we use AI literally everywhere in our day-to-day lives. Our phones, our social media, and even our cars use some form of AI. Artificial Intelligence is being used and integrated into almost all aspects of our lives, from entertainment to our work. The scope to innovate and develop AI for the betterment of our species and society as a whole is immense, and AI is primed to shape our future in many ways.
What is Artificial Intelligence?
Understanding what Artificial Intelligence is and how it works can be a little complicated. In its basic essence, AI involves the simulation of human ‘intelligence’ in machines. It involves programming a machine to learn and think for itself. Any machine that can accomplish tasks that you would think would require the intelligence of a human can be considered Artificial Intelligence.
While we are still a long way away from the science-fiction AI-powered robot armies of ‘I, Robot, ‘ we still employ a lot of AI in our everyday lives. Your search engine results? AI. Your YouTube recommendations knowing what you’d want to watch next? AI. Your vehicle’s cruise control? That is AI too. Your phone’s camera auto-focus? AI. Even the advertisements you see are recommended to you through AI. Businesses all over the world are integrating AI solutions to optimize their work operations, accelerate their growth, and one-up their competitors. And while the worry about the potential harm that AI can cause shouldn’t be left unstated, AI might as well be what makes the world a better place for everyone.
How does AI work in simple terms?
We all kind of understand what Artificial Intelligence does and is capable of doing, but how does AI work? Well, the actual answer is incredibly complex and hard to understand without prior knowledge of computer systems, data systems, and data analysis.
In basic terms, AI enables computers and machines to learn through experience, taking in huge amounts of data sets, using iterative and algorithmic processing, and learning from features and patterns in the data. It does this for millions of tasks efficiently and rapidly, taking in information and learning in very little time.
It begins with programming and AI to meet a certain goal. At first, with a little human help, It runs tests, gathers data, and essentially gets trained to accomplish the goals more efficiently and more quickly with the data gathered. After the AI is trained up to a certain level, it can take in data, run tests, and continue learning independently. The AI continues to gather and use data to achieve its assigned goals with higher efficiency and with better outcomes, getting smarter every time.
This is how AI works in its simplest forms. We don’t exactly know where the AI road leads and what it holds for us in the future, but today AI, in its very early life, is already helping the world towards progress. Before getting caught up in the potential drawbacks of Artificial Intelligence, let’s have a look at the benefits it’s providing us and a few potential benefits it could provide us in the future.
Top 6 Benefits of Artificial Intelligence
Automation
This one, most of us already know about. We have been hearing of robots replacing us since probably the 70s, and it really is happening. AI has led to the automation of whole industries. It has allowed industries to not just have high production rates but also helped them improve their
quality, helped them more efficiently use their raw materials, have higher productivity, and can even predict machine and equipment breakdowns.
And it’s not just manufacturing. Mundane, repetitive, and boring tasks can also be accomplished more efficiently and quickly by AI, as, unlike us humans, AI can multitask extremely efficiently. Checking emails, verifying and processing documents, and more.
Reducing Human Error
Humans are prone to making mistakes every once in a while – it’s why the phrase ‘human error’ exists in the first place. Computers and Artificial Intelligence, if programmed correctly, however, don’t make any mistakes. AI makes decisions based on the data it gathers, analyzes, and processes, and the chance of errors is considerably reduced. Compiling data and using its designed algorithms reduces errors, increases accuracy, and becomes incredibly precise. In the end, eliminating mistakes and errors means AI enables companies and businesses to save precious time, money, and resources.
Smarter and Faster Decision-Making
Saving time and making better decisions is always valuable. And AI can allow us to do both. With Artificial Intelligence, logic is always above all. In us humans, emotions, and feelings can distract us from the facts and data and sway us from making smarter decisions. With AI, there are no feelings involved. It only focuses on facts and data and thinks logically.
AI is already being used alongside humans and utilized in machines to make them more efficient by cutting down on time wasted in making decisions. Data analysis, analyzing and predicting trends, providing forecasts, and delivering unbiased data are helping businesses globally become more efficient and grow.
Available all day, every day
Humans require rest. On average, a human can work for six to eight hours, including breaks. We also get bored easily, need to sleep, and have time to refresh, and we also need to live our personal lives. AI, on the other hand, never needs to sleep, lives a personal life, doesn’t get bored, and functions at its optimum level at all times. The availability AI provides can’t be matched by humans, and this 24/7 continual availability can have a significant impact on a business and on our personal lives.
A Few Ways Ai Is Already Improving Society As A Whole:
Medical Advances
The healthcare industry is utilizing Artificial Intelligence to make amazing medical advances. The potential AI provides in the medical world is incredible. Already, AI is helping us with various clinical diagnoses, patient monitoring, remote patient monitoring, and even suggesting treatments. The biggest benefit AI is providing at the moment is diagnosing diseases. AI is already proving to be more effective than humans in detecting various lung and breast cancers. AI is also being used in monitoring and controlling the spread of contagious diseases and predicting pandemics and future effects.
Predicting natural disasters
AI, combined with high-quality data, can be used to predict future natural disasters such as tornadoes, floods, volcanic eruptions, and earthquakes. And while AI might not be able to prevent these natural disasters from occurring, the predictions could be the difference between life and death for millions of people. Using various geophysical, hydrologic, and atmospheric data, AI can predict where and when a disaster might happen with incredible accuracy, allowing us to take precautions or make necessary evacuations.
Google has already developed a learning network predicting earthquakes accurately and is working on the same for flood-related disasters. This type of AI, however, still needs a lot of work as the frequency and trends of natural disasters to continue to change, especially facing the climate change occurring now.
Preserving the Environment
Artificial Intelligence can help us protect and preserve our environment for future generations. Improving our recycling systems, battling climate change, protecting habitats, all over improving our world for the better can be accomplished with AI. Using AI and machine learning can help us optimize our energy generation and usage, reduce our harmful emissions, increase the efficiency of our grid systems, and improve our renewable energy generation.
AI can also help us monitor and conserve our resources with the help of satellite images. It can monitor and detect changes in land use, tree cover, vegetation, and changes in species. All of this data can be incredibly helpful in our battle with climate change.
Providing Assistance to People with Disabilities
Artificial Intelligence is already being extremely helpful to people with disabilities. People with any kind of disability can greatly benefit from AI. Visual aid AI is helping visually impaired people read using their phone cameras. Lip reading AI is providing aid to the hearing impaired. Virtual assistants such as Google Assistant, Siri, and Alexa are helping people with mobility issues accomplish various tasks such as setting alarms, switching on/off their lights, and more using just their voice. These might seem like little things, but they can allow people with disabilities to thrive.
AI makes everyday life easier and safer
AI is making life safer and easier for everyone, not just people with disabilities. All of what we talked about in the last section applies here, too – anyone and everyone can make use of AI to make simple tasks even simpler and harder tasks just that much easier to accomplish. Alexa, Siri, and even the GPS we use to navigate around our AI. On our phones, the apps we use all utilize AI in some way or another. Spotify and iTunes use AI to recommend playlists and songs. YouTube uses AI algorithms to add videos to our recommendation feed.
Other than our home lives, AI also eases our work life. AI is making multiple industries easier and safer to work in. Manufacturing has been made safer, labor-intensive work is becoming easier, and dangerous occupations like mining and bomb defusal can be accomplished using AI-powered robots. All our everyday tasks, our dangerous activities, and everything in between can be made easier and safer with the help of AI.
Until now, all we have talked about is how AI can and is improving our society, but not everything can be sunshine and rainbows. There are a few issues we need to talk about. Just how Artificial Intelligence is helping and improving our society, it can also be used to amplify the negatives.
And as this technology continues to adapt and become sophisticated, the negatives can become incredibly dangerous.
Unemployment
We talked about automation previously and how it is a benefit of Artificial Intelligence, but this is also a negative. With AI improving automation and changing how we work, people are being forced away from their jobs and replaced with machines. Any and all businesses are trying to replace their minimum qualified employees with AIs that can do the same tasks and more with higher efficiency. Though this is also a sign of progress and improvement, it can lead to mass unemployment and workers being shut out of opportunities that cease existing.
Lacks Creativity
AI is predicted to be more intelligent than humans in the coming years. But intelligence is not the end all be all. Humans and industries still value creative thinking and approaches. Machines and AI are very intelligent, but they are not creative – they can only do what they’re programmed to do. Jobs like marketing, designing, and writing can certainly be helped and assisted by AI, but they will always require a human. These kinds of industries will always value human creativity and wisdom highly.
Unintended Consequences and Social Manipulation
Using algorithms and Artificial Intelligence can have unseen side effects. Just as the healthcare industry is using AI to improve its processes, any poorly constructed models or low-quality data could cause incredible harm to patients.
Another example seen today is the spread of propaganda through social media. With how good AI algorithms are at understanding us – they know what we want to watch, listen to, and what we want to buy. The same algorithms can be used to target and spread propaganda by showing you what you are interested in without verifying if it is factual or not. It is already believed that the Facebook algorithm has had its hand in swaying elections and inciting violence and genocides.
Discrimination
Discrimination is a huge potential issue and threat with Artificial Intelligence. With the huge amounts of data, it collects and analyzes, the misuse of this information can be incredibly harmful and discriminatory. For example, in 2015, Amazon found out that its hiring algorithm was heavily biased against women. This was not an intended bias but based on the previous data the AI collected; it was more favored towards men. Although this is an unintended bias, using AI can make this more prevalent instead of helping reduce discrimination and gender parity. The possibility of AI being used to profile and discriminate against certain demographics, such as the disabled, can be a highly harmful outcome.
Autonomous weapons
Here it is, the biggest worry most of us have with AI. AI isn’t just a tool for good; it can also be used by evil to cause harm. The race to autonomous weapons is the nuclear race of our times and autonomous weapons are already here. These weapons can search for, identify, and engage with targets without any human intervention. Although unmanned and autonomous weapons can also save lives, the potential downsides far outweigh the positives. Autonomous weapons lower the cost of lives considerably and blur the lines of who is responsible. What if an AI weapon misfires – which is held responsible? With these technologies improving and becoming mass-produced, the probability of them ending up in the wrong hands also increases.
Our Final Thoughts
All technology can be used for harm, and artificial intelligence is no different. Today, AI is enabling us to improve the lives of many. Medical diagnoses, ease and accessibility, business expansions, and making everyday life easier and safer. It is vital to improve on this technology, but it is just as important to have discussions and debates on how to move this technology forward with the kind of power it holds.
