Blog Post #10: Living in the Age of A.I.
From no presence of technology in our society to an immense presence of technology in our society, the creation of A.I. has taken over and is set to be the central component of the future. In 2016, Lee Sedol the grand champion of the game AlphaGO in South Korea took on an A.I. machine that made national headlines. This match was watched by tens of millions of people. There were lots of national pride was at stake and the match served public unveiling of national intelligence called deep learning A.I. A.I. ended up winning against Sedol as one type of intelligence defeated the other. This served as a pivotal moment where A.I. became mature and everyone hopped on the bandwagon of favoring and using A.I.. It also ended up being a sputnik moment for the Chinese Government as they woke up after hearing about this A.I. machine. China had a major goal in mind… they wanted to catch up with the U.S. in Artificial Intelligence by 2025 and take over the world by 2030. China actually has a larger market than the U.S. at the moment and they are in the process of creating a big city like Chicago where autonomous vehicles will be fully enabled. In addition, the nation has 50 times more mobile payments, 10 times more food deliveries and 300 more shared bicycle rides than the U.S. Each shared bicycle ride has all this data that is shared as A.I. is fueled by data. In other words, the more data it receives, the better it works. Companies in China operate these inventions with hopes of being a unicorn company. Having one unicorn because you are a billion dollar company and having two unicorns means you are a five billion dollar company. In total, 17-18 unicorns are in China with all of these new technological inventions and resources made available. For instance, facial recognition is something that is heavily present in the country of China and it is a high quality and reliable system. You literally can pay for things like KFC with a smile… Crazy!!!!!!! China is now in the works of getting more self-driven cars out on the road. Car accidents are a real thing that unfortunately happens every day and the video discussed how self-driven cars are the only way to get to 0% of fatalities. Self-driven cars are also attempted to be made for the benefit of human truck drivers. Right now, human truck drivers are limited to only driving 11 hours a day while a self-controlled truck wouldn’t have that limitation. The intelligence of the A.I. has also been displayed through the presence of video games as Google subsidiary DeepMind revealed an A.I. called Agent57 that can beat the average human at 57 Atari games. This was tested as an Atari video game played by a computer got better and better at the game as it progressed. By 100 games the A.I. learned to play the game, by 300 it learned how to win the game, and by 500 games it learned how to win the game in a unique way that had never been seen before. Technology is being made to discover breast cancer and the goal is for it to help figure out if someone has breast cancer a year before they normally figure it out. With this advanced technology within breast cancer research, you also can see whether someone will develop breast cancer in 5 years. This piece of A.I. information is serving as a tremendous resource to helping address a long going issue in our society.
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| Facial recognition technology is now available at numerous places in China including fast-food restaurants such as McDonald's and KFC |
Back in the 20th century, inventions like the television, radio, and video games were just starting to be invented and being released to the general public. Technology was not used as prominently as it is today and people would go ahead and grab research and communicate with their peers the old fashioned way. By going to the library and grabbing an encyclopedia and having face to face interactions with others. It wasn't until the beginning of the 21st century when technology was given more attention and was starting to be used on a more consistent basis. Between 2000 to 2004 Google's revenues increased by 3,590%, and was starting to receive nationwide attention for its acquired surveillance. By 2007, the proportion of the world's information that was stored digitally had rose all the way to 95%. Google essentially served as the pioneer for the use of acquiring public information and it wasn't long before other companies wanted a piece of the action as well. America was starting to put a stronger emphasis on technology as computers and other digital resources were starting to be seen at schools, offices, and restaurants around the country that was making the United States a more futuristic nation at a steady approach. America was wasting no time of making technology an every day facet of American life and it ended up helping our nation connect more freely and rapidly, allowing for many media sources to take off and expand their revenue. News sources like ABC, CBS, etc. have numerous outlets to share their content to its followers. Nowadays, it's not just about following a news source on television, you can go to google and instantly get a bunch of online sources from those same media outlets whether its Twitter, Instagram, or their very own website which typically has links to things like their exclusive blogs and podcasts that can only be accessed digitally. It is the norm for people to be able to consume news in a variety ways because of the digital era that we are living in today. 15 years ago, if you were to tell someone that you don't watch the morning or evening news on television, they would raise their eyebrows at you, now if you were to tell them that exact same statement today, their eyebrows would simply remain in place because its normal to not to watch the news on television since there's so many other ways to consume your daily news due to the rapid increase of technological advancements in our society.
On the other hand, a country like China, was also using technology and pieces of A.I., but they were moving at a more rapid pace and were wanting to take things to the next level instantly. The Chinese government created a surveillance program that would monitor and store basic information about their citizens such as their name, race, religious and political beliefs, and more. The program has caused major controversy throughout the nation as it is being seen as an invasion of privacy and an overpowered usage of A.I., but China's counterargument is that this program has improved security across their nation. America has taken noticed of this surveillance system being used by China. They have stated that western Xinjiang province of China has essentially turned into an open-air prison. People's movements are being closely tracked everywhere they go and there is little to no security of private information in China. Ironically enough, America has done the same thing of taking and storing citizen's personal information online, but they are just not doing it in the fancy and more elaborate way that China is doing at. Rather than throwing a bunch of brand new A.I. inventions at their citizens, America is being patient and trying to introduce just a few at a time while still being a modernized society. This has allowed Americans to not have to alter and live a totally different lifestyle which is beneficial for those that did not grow up in technology era. Technology and the internet has just really started to take over the world in the 21st century and there have already been some serious controversy with things like social media over becoming an every day facet of life for U.S. citizens. With that being said, there's no reason for the U.S. to rush anything, but countries like China are prioritizing speeding up their process on innovating more sources of A.I. to become available to their residents with has presented its fair share of pros and cons. However, China is doing this in hopes of being different from the U.S. and taking over the reign as the most dominant and powerful nation in the world.
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| The U.S. Government has called China an "open-air prison" for overly tracking the information of their citizens |
Positive Effects of A.I.
With the increased presence of A.I. in today’s society, it is set to bring a series of positive benefits to the world that is going to help advance its overall resources immensely. For starters, the reduction of human error is perhaps the most notable pro of incorporating more A.I. into our world. As I previously mentioned in my overview, the percentage of fatalities on the road can be 0% if every car is self-driven. We’re not just looking at these cool inventions like self-driving cars coming to existence, we’re also looking at a resource that is going to help save lives just like how A.I. Is being used more extensively with breast cancer research. Furthermore, A.I. will now be used to take major risks instead of humans taking those risks. Applying the concept of A.I. to Rogers’ Diffusion Theory, a new invention will no longer need to be tested by humans if it can first be tested by AI Robots. Disney recently announced that they plan on using A.I. Robots at the new Avengers Campus at Disney California Adventure. Robots will now serve as stuntmen for shows which means there will be no need to worry about witnessing stuntman injuries at the parks anymore. Essentially, the level of safety and reduced harm for human beings are some really positive benefits for why A.I. needs to continue to become a larger force in our society. A.I. is also extremely accessible. A robot can put on a stunt show or drive a car 24/7. They have the ability to do things us humans can’t functionally do. We can’t stay up 24/7 because we need sleep. Even if we try to stay up, it will cause us to have severe mental and physical effects which is not good for our health. With robots, we do not need to worry about that. Think about if a whole restaurant is operated by A.I. robots… you can get served at any time of the day! The opportunities A.I. can bring is fantastic and it’s hard to not be excited about all the wonderful benefits it can bring to our society.
Listed below are some more pros of A.I...
- Faster decisions can be made
- Digital assistance
- More daily applications like Siri, Cortana, etc.
- New inventions
Negative Effects of A.I.
While A.I. is viewed as something that can help bring more value into our society, there are still some drawbacks of it that are causing hesitation across the world for it to be used on a more consistent basis. One of those primary negative effects is unemployment. Robots could end up taking lots of our jobs. Despite the fact that the number of jobs decreases on a consistent basis, certain ones that are more than likely going to be around forever like police officers, doctors, and teachers cannot afford for robots to take their jobs. It’s crazy to think that a robot could be teaching 10th grade someday! Nevertheless, it’s not even the fact that robots could steal our jobs, its the fact that they can steal our PASSIONS!! I love sports broadcasting and the plan is for me to land a full-time sports announcing job after I’m done with college. I would be kicking myself nonstop if a robot took my job of announcing games in the booth. Yeah I can find another field to work in that is more humanized, but now I won’t be able to do something that I am as passionate about. See my point here? The incorporation of A.I. in our society could severely demolish our dreams and it can even make us lazy. If we know robots are going to be available to clean up our rooms, take out our trash or do our groceries then that will create for people to be less motivated. Having seen how social media and technology has immensely affected our face to face interaction in society, I really do not want to see A.I. take over in this regard. Think back to the 1600s when there was no technology in existence and everyone had to work hard to hunt for food and seek quality shelter. I personally don’t think it’s fair nor beneficial for us to get a free path of life. What makes life fun is completing tasks, getting chores done, etc. It teaches you the principles of responsibility which is something you can solely learn through experience and NOT robots.
Think about how much technology and social media has already affected our society over the years. Many people have gotten to the point where they are constantly glued to their phone, computer, etc. This is because social media became in a norm in our world and things like online shopping became more prevalent whether it's purchasing a pair of shoes or buying groceries. What started as just a trend, became a full-time feature in our society and the presence of online shopping and usage of social media has only increased since then. Millions and millions of individuals are too content with social media and its not going anywhere anytime soon. What if online shopping was taken away from our world? Do you think lots of people would be angry? Oh you bet. They would let their voices be heard and protest in every form that they can. This is why our society needs to be careful when it comes to creating more technological inventions of A.I. The moment that a bunch of A.I. inventions are provided to U.S. citizens and then eventually citizens in other nations, there will be no turning back to what was before. Our world is not a time machine. People are always looking more and more ways to try new features, but a feature like A.I. is one that serve as a real distraction and disruption to our society if not presented and used accurately. The problem is, it does not seem like A.I. is meant for limitations or small quantities A.I. is a go big or go home type of feature. Self-driven cars, robots, etc. are all BIG inventions that would cause a drastic shift on our world and be served as inventions that would try and "help" various individuals in the world today. This means if even five A.I. inventions are introduced in the span of six months, then our society may not be able to handle all these new products being thrown at us. Especially for a nation like America, we are so diverse and very critical of a lot of things where we would just NOT be able to handle a bunch of new inventions. Of course, A.I. is already affecting America due to the fact that China is in love with it and is trying to use it as a way to overpower America. The U.S. is still in a secure spot where they are still the most powerful nation in the world. Would A.I. be the solution to securing our top spot even more? Who knows, but we have already seen social media and technology control the lives of a lot of our citizens and do we really need ANOTHER source of technology that can take our jobs away and mess with our critical thinking skills?
Listed below are some more cons of A.I...
- No emotions within these machines
- Lack of out of box thinking
- High costs to create these A.I. products
- No improvement with experience as a machine is just a machine
The A.I. video did mention that there is a fear that A.I. could be overused which is a very valid point. As expressed in the negative effects section of this post, people can easily start becoming super lazy and relying heavily on A.I. to bail them out and take care of all of their tasks. How beneficial would that be for our society to have half of U.S. citizens not working or being productive in any fashion? I can answer that: Not so beneficial. Having citizens be less productive will lead to them having more free time to commit more harmful actions which would have a severely detrimental effect on our society. We are human beings for a reason and we were all created for a purpose. Imagine if all doctors were robots. We wouldn’t have been able to see all these incredible HUMAN doctors and robots serve such tremendous value to our world and be recognized for their hard work. Yes, we’ve seen technology and social media create many jobs, most notably the job of being an online influencer, but adding too much of A.I. inventions in our nation are going to cause us to not think on their feet as quickly and think we do not have to put forth as much effort into what we do in our everyday lives which is absolutely not true. A.I. is really a fantastic concept but I cannot stress enough on how it needs to be executed CORRECTLY. A.I. is great for things like cancer research and more, but if it’s going to limit the face to face interactions we have at common places like doctor offices, restaurants, hotels, and all that stuff then it’s really not worth it. We’ve actually seen a lot more mobile kiosks present already at places like restaurants and hotels. You can do mobile ordering on your phone or tablet and then you can check into a hotel using a mobile key. This eliminates that face to face interaction which has been gradually dwindling down ever since these inventions have been put into place. Yes, these inventions are very convenient, but they are also making these restaurants and hotels think that customer service and face to face interaction doesn’t matter at all anymore. I have experienced some pretty bad encounters with customer service at restaurants and hotels over the past few years. It seems like these people do not know how to hold a conversation. Me being a sports broadcaster, a big pet peeve of mine is someone who doesn’t know how to interact with someone face to face. Someone who makes minimal to no eye contact, doesn’t make the effort and listen, and the other common qualities that make up a great conversation. I just know our world and specifically America goes crazy for any big invention that’s made and I just don’t want to fall into the trap of relying on A.I. to do EVERY single thing for us because they can’t. Even if there A.I. inventions for everything, we shouldn’t be using them all because there are certain tasks that we need to keep humanized and complete on our own. With that being said, A.I. is definitely going to provide LOTS of positives to our society and in my personal opinion, I think it will bring more positives than negatives BUT that again will only be the case if we human being monitor how we use it and don’t become heavily addicted to it in any sense. All in all, we should be extremely proud to see just how far technology has come. A.I. is such a fascinating concept that really is going to take over and save our world in the future. It seems like our society is slowly but surely shifting into another era of digital technology and I am optimistic that it will be the best era yet. Artificial Intelligence was meant for greatness and it’s going to do just that.
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