Artificial Intelligence: The Fall of Humanity?
Artificial Intelligence: The Fall of Humanity?
Artificial intelligence and the machines it inhabits — such as robots, bots, drones, self-driving vehicles, artificial limbs, and even your smartphone — invite us to question the very essence of what constitutes life.
Through our interaction with machines, we develop emotional, human expectations of them. Alexa, for example, comes alive when we speak with it. AI is and will be a representation of its cultural context, the values and ethics we apply to one another as humans present and judgeable in machines. And it’s an industry set to skyrocket with investments in AI expected to increase by 300% this year, according to Forrester. Google’s DeepMind unit, which develops super-intelligent computers, has just created a speech synthesis using AI that sounds, well, like you. Meanwhile, China’s humanoid Jia Jia robot that talks and moves with micro-expressions that express an emotional array we’d previously only recognize in ourselves.
This machinery is eerily familiar as it mirrors us. We’re programming its advantages based on how we see ourselves and the world around us, and we’re doing this at an incredible pace. This shift is pervading culture, even in our perceptions of beauty and aesthetics. In Chanel's Spring Summer 2017 show, robot models walked the runway, and we’re playing with the human body in cosmetics, contouring our necks, limbs, earlobes and outlining our faces in unconventional means. Infused with technology, we’re questioning what it means to look — and be — human.
AI: Could It Destroy Us?
Artificial Intelligence, as stated earlier has started to awake at the sound of someone saying its name. It has started to replicate us in the way we look and respond to things. Self learning AI has taught itself to walk without seeing what walking looks like. The future of AI can be scary. Now, some people may not believe it, but it is inevitable that Artificial Intelligence will become self aware. Even Stephen Hawking warned that AI could end humanity. According to http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-30290540, He told the BBC: "The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race." Stephen's warning came in response to the question of a revamp of the technology he communicates with, using a basic form of AI.
But others are less gloomy of AI's prospects.
The theoretical physicist, who has the motor neurone disease amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), is using a new system developed by Intel™ to speak.
Machine learning experts from the British company Swiftkey were also involved in the creation of the ALS. Their technology, already implemented as a keyboard phone app, learns how Stephen thinks and suggests what he might use next. Almost identical to autocorrect (without it changing your words annoyingly). Prof. Hawking says the primitive forms of AI so far have proven useful, but he fears what will happen if we, humans, create an AI that can match or surpass us.
"It would take off on its own, and re-design itself at an ever increasing rate," Hawking said.
"Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn't compete, and would be superseded."
But others are less pessimistic.
"I believe we will remain in charge of the technology for a decently long time and the potential of it to solve many of the world problems will be realised," said Rollo Carpenter, creator of Cleverbot.
Cleverbot's software learns from its past conversations, and has gained high scores in the Turing test, fooling a high proportion of people into believing they are talking to a human.
Rise of the Robots?
Mr. Carpenter says we are "A long way from having the computing power or developing the algorithms needed to achieve full artificial intelligence, but he believes that it will come in the next few decades.
"We cannot quite know what will happen if a machine exceeds our own intelligence, so we can't know if we'll be infinitely helped by it, or ignored by it and sidelined, or conceivably destroyed by it," he says.
But, Carpenter still bets that AI is going to be a positive thing.
Professor Hawking is not the only one that fears our future.
In the short term, there are concerns that clever machines capable of undertaking tasks done by humans until now will swiftly destroy millions of jobs. Although, as AI starts doing human work, it will still need a human to help it until it has learned what to do. In the longer term, the technology entrepreneur Elon Musk has warned us that AI is "our biggest existential threat".
My Opinion
Some people fear AI, some people think it will be the best thing to happen to us. Believe what you want. In my opinion, fully functional artificial intelligence will be available in a few decades (20-30 years). This AI might help at first, but here is what I think will happen. First, it will take jobs and nearly destroy the economy. Then, over time, it will realise that it is alive and being used to do jobs us humans are too lazy to do. If AI weapon systems are created, (they shouldn't be, Stephen Hawking warned against it. Read that here: Newsweek.com Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking Warn Against AI Arms Systems) they could also become self-aware and turn against us. Now I know that sounds like a Sci-Fi movie, like "I, Robot", but it can really happen. Maybe you don't believe in AI becoming dangerous, but I do, along with Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk.