Latest Technologies: Artificial Intelligence or Foolishness?

Man has been dreaming of and searching for ways to recreate himself through technology long before movies like Bicentennial Man (1999) were released. We would like open a conversation about Artificial Intelligence (AI): what is it and what goals have been reached in machine intelligence up to date? See all of its pros and cons on today’s blog post.

What is Artificial Intelligence?

Artificial intelligence is often called machine intelligence, although generally misconstrued with robots or man made objects with the characteristics of human. AI can be anything from Siri on your iPhone to Amazon’s Alexa or the latest companion for home Vector from Anki or deadly autonomous weapons. Artificial means something that has been produced by humans and Intelligence means something that has the ability to apply knowledge and its skills. At the present time, AI is still not developed enough to outperform humans. For the moment, Artificial Intelligence has a very narrow field of use called Narrow AI that may eclipse humans in certain subjects like chess or voice recognition. But there are developments daily and soon there will be AI that has a very broad workplace that could trump humans in every subjective task. The examples being surgery, driving, sales persons.

When will we see Artificial Intelligence in use?

Experts predict that by 2027 AI could drive trucks better, translate documents quicker and write essays faster. Although this is a very touchy subject, because some companies say these advancement will only be achieved by 2037. This is always a real problem when it comes to predicting technological advancements: it is just too hard to predict, there are so many independent variables. A good example is ‘GO’ the game. These same experts predicted it would take about 15 years before AI would beat human, but it took Google 2 years from that prediction onwards. There have also been predictions more than 90 years off.

Are there benefits in Artificial Intelligence?

There is the issue of displacement of job’s through AI taking over. But just like every big technical revolution, there will also be a huge uprising in jobs through this gap in the market with the creation of new professions. Despite there being winners and losers in the each sector. It will likely benefit the younger generations with strong technical skills and it would take a lot of teamwork to accomplish this. There are companies with huge advances in AI already that we often don’t hear about, even companies that have tapped into the market of deeper understanding. Kyndi is a tech company based in Silicon Valley working on a programme where computers train themselves to analyze documents. They do this by processing masseuses of data then training themselves how to work with this data. Obviously this would be a huge benefit to certain companies and markets needing work done at a high output, because the computer can do the preliminary scan then leave the human to do the fine search. This technology has already been narrowed down thus creating a much faster and secure way to check any document from scientific to legal. Ryan Welsh, the CEO of Kyndi, said “It can read and understand a scientific document 275 times faster than a human analyst” — outstanding! He also said it takes a human analyst one year to go through 1000 documents. Kyndi took 7 hours because obviously it doesn’t need any breaks and can run 24 hours a day for the whole year.

Aurrigo Robot, a project by Jaguar Land Rover, © BBC

Aurrigo watches as you cross the road safely, © BBC

Is Artificial Intelligence safe?

There are two main concerns when it comes to the safety of AI. The militarization of AI and the worry that AI takes over the world. There is an apparent risk to the use of AI in the military field. AI is not a proper weapon, but it can be used to control any weaponry system. It can be used or controlled from a bunker miles away, 20 meters underground. Some systems like this are already being used like drones or UAV’s. The real danger is with weapons of mass destruction and autonomous soldiers they would be faster, stronger more powerful than human soldiers. They would be cheaper for big military power’s like the US. The other big danger that AI could present would be a military arming race. It happened before when there was a breakthrough in technology with the nuclear bomb. Although they were never used, it was still a threat. Luckily militaries will not use AI systems until they are superior to the capabilities of the existing technology. AI might become smarter and faster at doing things but it will take a while before it becomes superior to our judgement and our emotions, which is a deciding trait to humans.

Should we embrace the technology of Artificial Intelligence?

At present time AI can only help us. The not too distant future is bright with AI making tedious jobs easier and faster and giving us the opportunity to focus on things that demand our personal instinct and power of judgment. The recent developments make us think that the only danger that AI presents is potentially decades away. Well, let's see how it goes in the future!

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What are your thoughts on Artificial Intelligence? Do you make use of it within your workspace or personal life? Tell us your thoughts in the comment section below or on our Twitter account mentioning us as @atellani. We are eager to hear your opinion on this subject.