Final Assessment Technology Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence
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Institution
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Artificial Intelligence
The world keeps on changing and new developments are welcomed with each passing season. In the past, people walked from one place to another to pass on a message. They would take days and some months to deliver a message and then come back home. Slowly, the idea of walking was phased out by the use of horses. Instead of walking, people started to use horses to transport them from one place to another. Horses made the journeys shorter and messengers could travel for longer distances and make the return journey faster than human messengers. However, the horses were also phased out as humanity adopted better means of sending messages. Today, it takes seconds to send a message from one part of the globe to another. People can use their email, social media, text messaging, and others prefer calling to sending a message. All the above are a testament to how the world has grown and developed. However, even with mankind’s load of work reduced, engineers and scientists are working hard trying to recreate the mind of human beings. They are trying to simulate the intelligence of mankind on machines and this has given rise to artificial intelligence. Narayan (2019) defines artificial intelligence or AI as “the simulation of Human Intelligence by machines.” This, apparently, is the new development everyone appears excited to talk about. Every development comes to make work easier and AI is not any different. However, AI seeks to do more than make work easier. AI restructures and changes job descriptions. Some people see it as a threat while others see it as a development. This paper thus seeks to build on the above and explicate on the goals, impact, and ethical implications of AI in the world today.
Like any new piece of technology, AI is built with a purpose in mind. The goal of AI is to create machines that emulate human beings or that function intelligently. Engineers are working hard to make sure they are able to simulate themselves and thus reduce humanity’s physical involvement in the workplaces. In other sectors, the goal is to reduce mankind’s involvement entirely. A good example is the oil drilling plants that are dangerous and often endanger the lives of men and women who work there.
Aside from the above, Narayan (2019) explains that AI can “enhance our work and make it simpler by way of automation, prediction and increased efficiency of work in terms of speed as well as accuracy.” This is also another purpose or goal of AI. Mankind is skilled but there are other aspects that often miss the mark and these mainly include the aspect of accuracy and efficiency. Well, AI seeks to perfect these flaws in mankind. In his article, Novet (2017) mentions machine learning which “entails teaching a machine how to do a particular thing, like recognizing a number, by feeding it a bunch of data and then directing it to make predictions on new data.” Another aspect of machine learning called deep learning further enhances what AI can do and leads to better prediction and accuracy beyond mankind’s imagination.
AI’s overall impact is a topic that elicits different takes or opinions. Some people seem to believe that AI is evil and that nothing good will come out of simulating human intelligence. Others are of the opinion that AI will change the world and lead to more possibilities and opportunities for the world. Fekety (2015) outlines several positive impacts of AI. He notes that “with artificial intelligence, the chances of error are almost nil and greater precision and accuracy is achieved.” As indicated earlier, AI’s purpose is to help enhance accuracy and prediction. A machine loaded with relevant data will indeed meet certain demands or goals more efficiently than human beings. The phrase to err is human applies to mankind only but not to machines.
Another impact of AI is their use in research and space exploration. Currently, humanity is working around the clock with intelligent robots that are exploring space. These robots take photos and collect data that they then send back to earth. Today, humanity knows more about space and what can and cannot be found there because of these robots.
Fekety (2015) notes that “intelligent robots can be programmed to reach the Earth’s nadirs.” He continues to say that they can “be used for mining purposes” or be used to explore “the depths of oceans.” Mining and exploration are dangerous undertakings and often claim the lives of those who are involved in these jobs. However, the replacement of mankind with intelligent robots can help to save lives.
However, there is always a dark side to everything and AI has its negative impacts as well. Bossman (2016) talks about unemployment as a result of AI’s introduction in companies. As companies continue to adopt intelligent robots, more people continue to lose jobs. It is true that robots reduce the operational costs of firms. However, this is happening at the expense of people and this complicates the ideas of automation.
Tegmark (2016) introduces two negative impacts of AI. The first one is AI’s use of “destructive method for achieving its goal.” He continues to say that the above is possible as long as mankind fails to “fully align the AI’s goals with ours.” AI’s are machines and often may not work the same way as human beings. So, of...