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Artificial Intelligence
The first thing that a person thinks of when they hear about artificial intelligence is robots. Artificial Intelligence is the simulation of human characteristics into machines that are programmed to think, behave and mimic people’s actions. These machines are not as smart as human beings, but there is a possibility that they may be smarter than the average person in the future. However, there are many areas that robots are better than humans. These machines have the ability to learn and solve problems on their own. Artificial intelligence is slowly changing our lives but the magnitude of what it can do has not yet been determined. What was once considered science fiction only fit for thriller movies and books has been brought into reality. Who would have ever imagined that one day there would be a machine that teaches itself how to play table tennis or chess? There are several ways that this phenomenon is changing society, both positively and negatively. However, all the negatives and the positives have been blended to create the society we live in today and are still mutating to something whose magnitude cannot be determined. This paper shall clearly outline several ways in which artificial intelligence is changing the world.
What can be described as best news to an amputee than being granted the chance to walk again or restore the ability to grasp again without their arm? It is not through miracles or black magic but through prosthesis development that has been fitted with artificial intelligence and performs just like a normal leg or arm. Artificial intelligence is technologically integrated with machine learning in the prosthetic industry to create what once seemed impossible. Leading engineers have used the concept of neural networks to simulate various anatomical and biochemical functions of the lost parts of the human body. The prototypes have a computer installed into them which runs algorithms and then decides on the actions of the muscle-tendon-like motor-system. Hugh Herr is a leading professor and developer of prosthetics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology whose life can be used to summarize the role of artificial intelligence in helping people with disabilities. He is a pioneer in intelligent prosthetics and a single person who is both developer and user of prosthetics. He developed the ambition to develop prosthetics after he lost his lower limbs for, he admits that he always felt there was a void that needed to be filled in his life. He has developed a leg prosthesis for himself and what he does proves the assertion that disability is not an inability but depends on perspective. He goes for morning runs and even still engages with his greatest passion for mountain climbing. These robotic prosthetics have enabled these people to access buildings and performing tasks that would have been otherwise impossible. It is through the power of Artificial Intelligence that body and machine are slowly merging.
Artificial intelligence is also increasingly improving communications. There are more than three billion people in the world who access the internet every day. Artificial Intelligence lies behind every search or interaction on social media platforms. It controls what people see and plays an important role in determining what we read and what we don’t. However, it is through artificial intelligence that the problem of fake news is propagated. Some media companies have developed bots that generate clickbait which lures people into clicking links that are either revenue generating or malicious. Most of the information contained in the articles is fake and has important relevance on current issues that people are searching for. Capturing and retelling people’s important information has become a lucrative business, as shown by the fact that information technology firms such as Facebook and Microsoft are among the most valuable companies in the world. Therefore, it is important the role their intelligent algorithms play in the spread of fake news. These algorithms help determine who people are, what they like and what to prioritize their search lists, and, more sophisticated, the target is in terms of advertising. False information is moving digitally in the society at an unprecedented rate while the truth moves from person to person at a slower rate. Political fake news is the most spread on all social media platforms. This has changed the political climate worldwide. Therefore, artificial intelligence has negatively impacted the world based on communication as it has increased division in the society.
One of the most featured fields looked into when discussing artificial intelligence is how it will change conflicts. Superpower countries are in a race competing on who will develop the best and most destructive intelligent autonomous weapons. It’s like they are anticipating another world war so that they may test their weapons. This has left almost everyone frightened with the rhetorical question of whether machines should be granted the chance to make life or death decisions. Professor Wendell Gelding, one of the top ethicists on autonomous weapons in the United States, firmly holds to his advocacy for their worldwide ban. He says that people don’t really understand what lethal autonomous weapons are in reality. People have failed to grasp that lethal autonomy is not a weapon system but a feature set that can be added to any weapon system. These weapons have been incorporated with artificial intelligence features such as image recognition and target recognition. Machines should not make life and death decisions for humans but humans should make these decisions for humans. If humans open that door for machines to make life and death decisions, they will undermine the basic principle of a responsible human agent. The emergence of artificial intelligence and how it can be added to lethal weapons opened a door that many would wish had never been discovered. The effects of these weapons may turn the world into debris in seconds and thus in case there arises a third world war, people should be prepared for the worst disaster ever to hit planet earth. This is because the main responsible agents would be machines. In the past, we had been too deluded to recognize we were going down the wrong path; there needs to be a world wide ban on the use and development of lethal autonomous weapons.
The industrial revolution of the 21st century is taking place thanks to Artificial Intelligence. Self-driving cars, robotic tools, and complex production plants are being linked through sensors and equipped with Artificial Intelligence. The revolutions are taking place at a faster pace, especially due to competition by superpowers. In Germany, self-driving cars have been approved for usage. However, people are still stereotypic and unsure whether these machines can make rational decisions if they are in situations that may result in accidents. Companies with decades of experience in the production of real-life objects have a competitive advantage when incorporating machine learning and industrial AI into their machines.
China is one of the leading countries that have embraced digitalization and Artificial Intelligence. It is a country whose economy is growing at a fast rate. Chinese are traditional thinkers and are more open to new technology and to the world. It is amazing how mobile money has grown in China and people even do almost all transactions using their smartphones. Young China is catching and the whole nation is hungry for success. China was not a first-world country forty years ago but it has now overtaken the United States when it comes to filling Artificial Intelligence patents. An example is the adoption of a digitized transportation service that operates in almost all Chinese cities. This application of AI is known as Real-Time Traffic Information (RTTI) and has helped control traffic flows and thus minimize the chance of traffic jams. The Chinese government recognizes that empowering the youth to learn and develop AI skills is important. Engineers and programmers are the new celebrities in China. Every child growing up wants to associate with this group of experts. The students have top-level education, have platforms to develop their ideas and the most inspiring of all is that they are hungry to conquer the virtual world.
The AI generation is slowly replacing the internet generation. We live in an age whereby kids are taught about artificial intelligence while still in pre-school. Kids are taught about the structure of these devices, who made them and the ultimate goal of having them. This shows that Artificial intelligence will have taken root in almost every aspect of life in the coming years. The world is bound to experience the thrill and circus brought about by AI. Boarding a self-driven car will be the new normal; having robots as teachers will not be something new and digitization will impact everything. Trust and intelligence are correlated since if a kid discovers that a device is smart, they will trust it more. Therefore, Artificial Intelligence is expected to facilitate the generation of smart robots that these children will trust as they grow up. One major disadvantage of robots is that they can only do one specific task. Children ought to be taught the importance of valuing humanity and not trusting machines so much. A robot can play chess better than a human genius, but on the other hand, it cannot arrange chess pieces on the board, a task a six-year-old can manage.
In conclusion, Artificial Intelligence is changing the world in many areas and a high-speed rate. There are both positive and negative impacts of this phenomenon and thus humans should strive to rid away from the negative and foster the positive. It shapes every aspect of today’s world, beginning from developing prosthetics for the disabled to the formation of autonomous lethal weapons that can destroy the world in minutes. Some robots have been programmed to perform surgeries. Despite all this, it is important to understand that the generations of robots, self-driven cars and other machines will mean human labor will be less required and thus, the unemployment rate will rise. Finally, Artificial Intelligence is growing at a fast rate and permeating almost every aspect of life. Thus people should brace themselves for the uncertain future that may come with it.