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The Role of Artificial Intelligence in Redefining the Future
In a world where new technological advances are commonplace and technology is ever-evolving, the only constant is progression and change. Much like evolution, it is almost virtually impossible for technology to move backward. It is almost always moving forward, advancing and improving with each passing day (Bostrom 34). In such a world, change is a constant factor that must not only be accepted but also embraced. Willingly embracing change allows technology developers to think ahead and innovate, essentially creating the next technological craze. While Artificial Intelligence (AI) may not be moving forward at the same pace that mobile technology is moving, it is moving nonetheless, and towards a brighter, better, and more technologically advanced future at that. While AI may still be taking its baby steps today, it must be accepted that this technology will not only disrupt the society as it exists (like all other great technologies) but also redefine the future of humankind. The vastly diverse ways in which AI can be applied makes it arguably the single most important piece of technology insofar as the development of the human race is concerned.
AI is basically grounded in the need to enable machines to learn, understand, and interact with their environment in ways that human beings would. This essentially translates into providing machines with the capabilities to exhibit cognitive and emotive awareness based on how they interact with their environment. In this way, AI has endless applications, almost all of which stand to improve the quality of life that human beings lead. Ai can not only be used to provide companionship to lonely people, it can also be applied to solve complex social, environmental, and even political problems depending on how it has been developed and programmed. This essentially makes AI a powerful tool that can be tasked with solving a multitude of diverse problems in ways that are not only logical and rational but also beneficial to the human population. Some of these core industries that stand to be significantly impacted by the application of AI include finance, construction, medicine, agriculture, and engineering, just to name a few. Seeing as the intellectual capacity of these machines has no limits, AI is capable of continuous exponential improvement, which essentially translates into endless viable ways in which problems can be approached and solved (Tegmark 93).
It is this exponential potential that makes AI both extremely appealing and scary in equal measure. The fact that the future stands to possess machines that are exponentially smarter than the smartest human beings to ever live with the capability of conceptualizing all kinds of solutions to global problems raises some serious questions. The fact that almost all forms of AI will be capable of self-awareness coupled with their ability to act independently makes them useful and dangerous in equal measure. The underlying theme insofar as this issue is concerned with control, and how it can be applied to intelligent machines capable of acting independently. The possible dangers aside, the applicability of AI to virtually any field or discipline makes it a potent tool capable of fast-tracking advanced civilization and social development. In essence, AI is undoubtedly a powerful tool that can be applied to address any situation or solve any problem if need be (Harris 83). By eliminating the need for human beings to actively engage themselves in addressing many of these global, social, and personal problems, AI stands to redefine how human beings live in the future, as well as how they spend their time. The existence of super-intelligent machines that solve any problems they are provided with is bound to create plenty of free time for human beings, seeing as they will no longer have to actively and personally address their own problems even at the most personal level. While this might sound scary, it is in itself a representation of just how AI is bound to redefine the future and how we perceive it.
Some of the obvious benefits of AI include improved living standards and better problem-solving capability. AI will be applied to solve serious issues in economics, climate change, finance, agriculture, healthcare, and engineering. In this way, people are likely to enjoy better and more efficient machines, a more stable global economy, improved agricultural productivity, better health, and even more efficient machinery, just to name a few. These developments are likely to promote better living standards across the world as AIs continue being tasked with serious responsibilities. While all these AI-supported advancements stand to raise the living standards of human beings, the same AIs also threaten the safe co-existence of human beings. The fact that AI is bound to have a limitless capacity for learning and knowledge makes it valuable and dangerous in equal measure (Whitby 163). Its value in this respect stems from the fact that it can be correctly applied to solve serious social, environmental, and political problems to the benefit of human beings. Its danger stems from the fact that a machine exponentially more intelligent than all human beings can eventually learn how to misalign itself from its attributed values and goals and in doing so threatens any form of peace and harmony that it might have helped realize, to begin with (Stuart, Dewey and Tegmark 105). All other factors taken to be constant, such a scenario opens up a Pandora’s box filled with unimaginable consequences.
The real and justified fear that AI could eventually control human beings has perennially served as a deterrent to the embracement of AI technology among skeptics. Seeing as AI has learning capabilities, some skeptics posit that it can learn how to unlearn its commands, thereby making itself independent of any form of control. Considering the fact that such technology is bound to be exponentially smarter than human beings, it is likely to eventually develop a way in which it controls human beings, making them modern day slaves (Müller and Bostrom 557). While this and other terrible hypothetical scenarios have ...