Is AI A Benefit Or A Potential Threat?

As Artificial Intelligence (AI) grows more sophisticated, concerns about  the challenges its widespread use presents humanity are growing.   

Job automation is generally viewed as the most immediate concern. It’s no longer a matter of if AI will replace some jobs, but to what degree.  In many industries, particularly, but not exclusively, those whose workers perform predictable and repetitive tasks, disruption is already taking place.

While science fiction often portrays AI as robots with human-like characteristics, AI can encompass anything from Google’s search algorithms to IBM’s Watson to autonomous weapons. This idea has been argued and discussed since Alan Turing said that there will be a significant impact on humans with intelligent machine that potentially mimic evolution.The aujthor Isaac Asimov first  formulated the Three Laws of Robotics to protect humans over 80 years ago.

With advances in AI capabilities, many people think that the sophistication and increase intelligence of machines could destroy humanity. 

Innovations in AI include robots that can teach themselves to walk without being programmed have caused a lot of concern. Also there was Facebook AI program that designed its own language and communicating with other robots. A 2017 poll in the United States found that 57% thought that AI poses a threat to the human race. Artificial intelligence has made its way into almost every aspect of our everyday lives. As we gain a better understanding of how we can utilise different aspects of AI and integrate them in different devices such as self-driving cars, machine learning algorithms and facial recognition we now see organisations employing the efficiency that AI offers.

A Pew Research study showed that approximately 70 percent of Americans are not sure as to whether they should be concerned about the rise of robots and AI. 

The large companies like Google, Apple and Amazon have continuously placed strong emphasis on the potential for these technologies to make our lives easier and improving efficiency, with other benefits. Although AI could potentially pose a threat to mankind, as of right now our understanding and research in AI is not advanced enough to create machines capable of carrying out multiple tasks. 

Concern about AI have been raised since the dawn of computing and there are also skeptics. Some of them think advanced AI is so distant that there’s no point in thinking about it now. Others are worried that excessive hype about the power of their field might kill it prematurely. And even among the people who broadly agree that AI poses unique dangers, there are varying takes on what steps make the most sense today. 

The conversation about AI is full of confusion, misinformation, and people talking past each other, in large part because AI use often refers to so many different aspects of electronic technology. AI progress so far has enabled enormous advances, and has also raised urgent ethical questions that should be researched and discussed. 

Pew Reserach:    Science News:         Forbes:        BuiltIn:          VOX: 

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