Digital Technology: Artificial Intelligence

Reflective Paper on Artificial Intelligence
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Introduction
Artificial Intelligence is one of the biggest and most important developments of technological advancement in the modern world. It has continued to play a significant role in easing work and making life more convenient. More organizations are steadily implementing Artificial Intelligence in their operations, aiming to increase efficiency and productivity. Artificial Intelligence is a helpful technology in modern society as it transforms every lifestyle. It plays a substitute role in the sense that its role in contemporary society is carrying out tasks that need human Intelligence. AI has made it easier for numerous industries to store and analyze data effectively, thus improving their operations. Although Artificial Intelligence requires a high cost of implementation, it is helpful in society as it facilitates major advances in healthcare, improves financial systems, and makes smarter business decisions.
This reflective essay will discuss AI's significance in modern society, including its history, current state, and main concepts such as machine learning, natural language processing, and computer vision. It will critically reflect on the benefits of AI for businesses and society, showing how it can offer a competitive advantage, organizational success, and societal progress. Additionally, it will evaluate specific functions within firms and industries that can benefit from AI, as well as potential new business models. However, it will also analyze the challenges of AI implementation from technological, human, ethical, and legal perspectives, including equipment, training, cultural changes, and ethical and legal considerations.
Statistical data indicates that there has been increasing number of AI investments in corporates. Reportedly, 2021 investments AI among corporates in the United States amounted to $93.5 billion. This has been a steadfast increase from 2015 (Statistica (2023). Many startup businesses have been developed as more people have embraced the great possibilities that AI offers. Current statistics indicate that there are nearly $142.3 billion worth of AI investments as of 2023 January. This trend is expected to continue growing as more businesses have a positive outlook towards AI. The figure below provides valuable insights on AI investments across the United States from 2015 to 2021.
Figure 1: Source: Statistica
Brief History and Current State of the Technology
The history of artificial Intelligence dates back to the development of automated systems to run machines and industries. This set the ground for further advancement, given that there was, and still is, rapid technological innovation worldwide. There has been an increase in the development of AI technologies over the past few months with the rapid developments of AI technologies like ChatGTP and Bard. Presently, more AI is being developed in many countries around the world, with Japan having a humanoid AI that can process 99% of languages (Haenlein & Kaplan, 2019). AI development will pick up even further as we continue getting further into technological sophistication.
Advantages of Using Artificial Intelligence for Business and Society
Healthcare has been one of the chief beneficiaries of AI. With increased medical sophistication, there has been an increase in the ability to carry out highly delicate procedures (Davenport & Kalakota, 2019). Advances in AI can potentially transform numerous areas of the healthcare sector. These areas include record keeping, surgery, treatment, research and even diagnosis. According to Akshay and Jadhav (2019), AI in healthcare can store and analyze data such as treatment and diagnosis.AI and help medical practitioners analyze patient history data to establish whether there is some historical connection that predisposes a patient to a particular ailment. This is through the use of data analytics, where unstructured data is quickly organized. There are fewer medical errors when AI is used. AI has made medical operations that were highly delicate to be safer and more successful. Sridhar and Sridhar (2021) claim that Artificial Intelligence has performed some tasks better than healthcare professionals.
Although the constant mutation of diseases and viruses is troubling, artificial Intelligence has allowed health facilities to create new treatment programs that allow people to live longer. Unlike doctors who cannot multitask, machine learning algorithms combine medical results with symptoms and images to identify various diseases in the human body. AI identifies diseases and offers treatment suggestions for cancer and other chronic diseases (Mintz & Brodie, 2019). Nowadays, it is through AI that some highly delicate and even life-threatening surgical operations are handled. This is because of their high precision in targeting the particular portion of the body being operated on. This has improved society, as the population can now be treated for diseases that used to decimate them. People are more prosperous and have longer lifespans.
Firms That Can Benefit from AI
The financial sector is an example of an industry benefitting from AI. AI is helping banking firms to make faster and more accurate decisions. This is through using analytics, which can be used to make crucial decisions over future business objectives. Artificial Intelligence has improved the financial system by reducing risks and increasing customer experience (Ravikumar et al., 2021). Customer experience is usually done over a certain period to gauge the real expectations of the clients over a long period. The periodic feedback collection is best done using AI, which can easily store and prompt further information from the clientele.
When it comes to the security of financial systems, the application of AI through robotics has proven to be quite fruitful and effective in the long run; since not only does it seal off any attempts of a breach but also helps generate new strategies on how to defend against them, automatically (Arslanian & Fischer, 2019). There are usually instances where cybercrimes are committed on an almost daily basis. Financial syste...