Will Artificial Intelligence Lead The World Into Chaos? In the book “Our Final Invention: Artificial Intelligence and the End of the Human Era”, James Barrat made cautionary emphasis on the abilities of artificial intelligence and their potential. Through superhuman learning rates and iterative self improvement, it is possibly one of the best or worst human inventions.
In 2016, the products and services of the artificial intelligence industry was worth $643.7 million and projected to grow to $36.8 billion by 2025. As we celebrate and encourage the development of artificial intelligence, there is another side of it that we need to acknowledge.
Humans pursue the use of artificial intelligence to improve and automate tasks. The development of this technology results in yield with higher accuracy, cost effectiveness and with lesser time taken. As it is proven as such, there is no practical justification for humans to take up the tasks within AI capabilities.
So rather than augment human capabilities, artificial intelligence could possibly replace it altogether. Jobs that are relevant now may be displaced and taken over by automation. This phenomena is applicable across all industries.
“Artificial intelligence is likely to be either the best or worst thing to happen to humanity”– Stephen Hawking
Artificial Intelligence Improving Security
Security is traditionally enforced by humans. Airport security used to only consist of officers in their posts at the border. The introduction of artificial intelligence in the security industry started off with thumbprint recognition. Thumbprint recognition also made its way into mobile phone security. Then years later, facial recognition was successfully developed and now it is widely implemented replacing thumbprint recognition security.
Pattern recognition can be learned, stored and executed better in artificial intelligence compared to humans. AI takes less time to learn and match the patterns. It has the ability to scale its capacity to store information that is beyond human capabilities.
The effects of this invention is to nobody’s surprise a tremendous change in the structure of the security systems. Officers who are not able to adapt and upskill will have to face the eventual depreciation in value of their contributions to the security organization.
“The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race….It would take off on its own, and re-design itself at an ever increasing rate. Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn’t compete, and would be superseded.”– Stephen Hawking
Relationship of Humans and Artificial Intelligence
Tech giants are no strangers to the use of artificial intelligence. Thanks to them, the application of AI has broadened to the point where humans could speak to machines like it is human.
A world where humans and machines interact was a mere imagination of generations before us. In 2020, Amazon Alexa is connected to 100 million users worldwide. Siri by Apple has 500 million users in 2022.
Siri and Alexa are among the apparent examples of artificial intelligence integrated into our lives. Their database is developed by machine learning where they correct themselves every time they respond with an error. The system records every correct response and correction made to improve itself over time.
Machine learning is incredibly impressive or could be potentially catastrophic. Take Amazon Alexa for example. According to Statista, in January 2016 it had 130 skills and in September 2019 it had learned over 100000 skills. That is a growth of 769% in the span of approximately 3 years. To put into perspective, Amazon Alexa learns 3.8 new skills in an hour. Even if a human can learn at that rate, there is no way we could retain all skills permanently.
It is difficult to directly compare these numbers to the rates of learning in humans. There is a limitation to human learning. We need breaks to eat, sleep and rest. Meanwhile in machine learning, downtime is not a necessity.
“I visualize a time when we will be to robots what dogs are to humans, and I’m rooting for the machines” -Claude Shannon
If you’ve ever wondered how Alexa sounds so human, you can thank natural language processing and generation. These skills come naturally to us humans, most of the time we don’t even think twice when we use them. Natural language processing is when a machine is able to make sense of human writing and speech. Natural language generation is the opposite, it is the ability of machines to produce text or speech that humans can understand.
In the future with the help of artificial intelligence, machines could actually manipulate human behavior. Humans are already addicted to their phone screens, we don’t know what technology can make humans do. So if you think humans will always be masters of robots, you should give that another thought. Which makes you really think, doesn’t it? Will artificial intelligence lead the world into chaos?
“Artificial intelligence is a tool, not a threat” – Rodney Brooks
Artificial Intelligence In Medicine
Medicine is another informative example. Diagnosis of diseases is a skill built on the records and experiences of generations of doctors. To diagnose a disease, physicians use tests and scans to identify their signs and symptoms. Disease diagnosis is a skill based on pattern recognition and artificial intelligence is perfect for the job.
Algorithms in machine learning can learn to detect patterns to help doctors with their diagnosis. Images from brain CT scans are analyzed by machines to detect tumors, hemorrhage or strokes. This algorithm, when improved and scaled up, is able to be applied for other diagnoses of similar nature.
Since early detection of skin cancer is the key for successful treatment, artificial intelligence can be of help in this field. Methodologies based on shallow and deep learning are trained for the identification and classification of skin cancer. Deep neural networks, when fed with a large amount of data, are able to become an image evaluation system to detect skin cancer.
Specialists had to undergo numerous training and hours of working to accurately detect and identify diseases and these people are limited in each field. Automated systems in artificial intelligence, if developed well, can analyze and produce results in a fraction of the time humans take.
The use of AI in medicine is no doubt a beneficial tool to improve accuracy and cost. In the near term, it is a capability augmentation. Doctors will benefit from the technology but staff like admins and radiologists may face some threats in job security.
“Artificial intelligence will reach human levels by around 2029. Follow that out further to, say, 2045, we will have multiplied the intelligence, the human biological machine intelligence of our civilization a billion-fold.”
—Ray Kurzweil
Will Artificial Intelligence make our lives better?
Mediocre jobs like cashiers and cleaners can be replaced by machines one day. The effect of the transition will encourage humans to pick up skills that are relevant to the economy. Diversifying and upgrading skills to gain financial advantages will be undoubtedly necessary.
Upon reflection, as artificial intelligence eliminates mundane tasks, humans will have more time to do things they enjoy. People can spend more of their resources on human connections and being creative instead of wasting time on tedious work. Imagine a life without chores. No more washing dishes, making beds and cleaning the toilet.
In the future when machines outperform humans in their current roles, jobs that are left available will be tasks that require a touch of humanity in them. Jobs like therapists, artists and nurses will continue to be relevant. Researchers, engineers, scientists and entrepreneurs will also be in demand as machines probably may not possess the ability to have imagination and creativity for the time being, at least within the next few decades.
“The pace of progress in artificial intelligence (I’m not referring to narrow AI) is incredibly fast. Unless you have direct exposure to groups like Deepmind, you have no idea how fast—it is growing at a pace close to exponential. The risk of something seriously dangerous happening is in the five-year time frame. 10 years at most.” – Elon Musk
So Will Artificial Intelligence Lead The World Into Chaos?
Humans have been the dominant species on Earth for approximately 50,000 years. Our domination is the outcome of our abilities to learn from our past mistakes and ability to cooperate. Globalization enabled the world to accelerate in growth as like minded talents join forces to improve their respective field of expertise.
Artificial intelligence emerged as a relatively new field. However, the earliest works could be traced back to the first half of the 20th century by Alan Turing. Over the years it became the product of cumulative research and experiments of hundreds of mathematicians, scientists, engineers and researchers.
Artificial intelligence is created to augment human activities. It reflects the abilities of the human brains to carry out activities to improve repetitive jobs. Though artificial intelligence is already making huge waves in human lives, it is still at a stage equivalent to a toddler. We do not know what it can possibly do when it reaches its full potential. Will artificial intelligence lead the world into chaos or will it make the world a better place?
Now machines with artificial intelligence have surpassed human learning abilities by multifold and there is no sign of slowing down. Imagine coexisting with a creature that thinks faster, learns quicker and remembers more.
Are we ready to stay in control in a world where superior creatures exist? Will we decide to evolve and learn to live with technology? Or will we fall into chaos and destruction served by our own kind?
