Date: July 21, 2020
Subject: “What Robots Can Tell us About Being a Human.”
AI involves algorithm which controls our lives. AI has jeopardized the future of employment. It is deduced by the University of Oxford researchers that around 47 percent of the jobs are going to be replaced by the computers sooner or later ( Frey and Osborne). Cathy O’Neil illustrates how algorithms are being used in our daily lives. It is being used in weapons of mass destruction, it is being used in implanting ideas in our minds (O'Neil). The Pew Research survey states that tough to teach intangible skills which involve emotional intelligence, creativity, resilience and critical thinking will be valued highly in the coming future. Another survey by the Pew Research Center indicates that 87 percent of the worker believe that they are consistently required to learn new skills in order to keep pace with the changing work requirements (RAINIE and ANDERSON). In this memo, I want to share my experience and my empathy about AI, to recommend some key changes in the curriculum of “What Robots Can Tell Us About Being Human” keeping in view the future prospects.
Machines are getting smarter and more invincible with each passing day, however, they can never develop the human values. Robots and machines are achieving superintelligence. Nowadays you can’t attend any technology conference without having an obsession with AI. The renowned scientists, researchers and entrepreneurs of the world such as Stephen Hawking, Bill Gates and Elon Musk are very much concerned about the ongoing research on how to keep the machines' intelligence under control. The primary purpose of keeping the machine intelligence under control is to thwart the threat they pose to human life. My insights will ameliorate the curricular revision and keep up to date meeting the future requirements in the field of education helping IAH.
The evolution in artificial intelligence began in 1950 when Alan Turing first posed the question of whether machines have the ability to think or not. Today, people are obsessed with the imagination of AI because of the rapid transformations it is bringing about in the contemporary societies and economies. AI has played a significant role in productivity gains, enhancing the well-being of the people, and dealing with the global challenges such as climate change, health crises and resource scarcity (OECD). Today, the race of AI dominance in increasing with each passing day. Today when people hear of the race for AI dominance they think about the technological competition between the US and China. Indeed, China and the US have the most renowned AI companies across the world. The growth of these companies is not slowing down. I believe it is important to study the obsession of AI by the giant tech companies, how they are making difference in contemporary society and what risks they are posing to the people living in the contemporary societies. Many other governments such as the UK, Israel, and South Korea are rapidly adopting AI (Walch).
Singularity indicates towards the AI getting more invincible and smarter than humans. It will abruptly trigger the technological growth, leading to the profound changes to human civilization. Computer as an upgradable intelligent agent will run into self-improvement cycles, leading to a more intelligent generation, which in turn, result in invincible superintelligence that overtakes human intelligence. The issue becomes more and more complex when disruptive technologies such as AR-VR, cloud computing, 3D/4D printing works in a way difficult to be conceived by the human mind. Many Hollywood movies have depicted the rise of machines and eventually their take over to human beings, for instance, Terminator series, The Matrix trilogy and many others. Stephen Hawking's biggest warning was about the rise of artificial intelligence, which according to him will either be a good thing ever happened to human beings are the worst thing ever happened to humanity. The seasoned technologists such as Prof Oren Etzioni; CEO of Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence and Professor of Computer Science at the University of Washington, Allan Dafoe; an assistant professor at Yale University and Nick Bostrom; a Swedish philosopher at the University of Oxford discussed that there will not be the alarming situation within next 30-70 years but the threat may rise in a long-term to the humankind (Lader).
Some people believe that AI is the advanced form of previous technologies others believed AI is radically different from the past technologies. AI is a much bigger concept of fostering intelligent machines which could simulate human thinking patterns and their demeanor. In the past, technology was based on simple machines. On the other hand, AI is not an unusual technology and it has turned has prone to many challenges, unlike previous technology. A comprehensive course must be designed to shed light on the transformation of AI, and how it is linked to the previous technologies (Bryson).
AI is indeed beneficial for the society. It stirs the research in many areas such as verification, validity, security and control. Its importance lies in the fact that it does what we want it to do such as, it can control our car or any of our vehicles it can control our power grid. AI is helping us to thwart the arms race in lethal autonomous weapons. Through the invention of super-intelligent computers, we can rule out war, poverty and diseases from the world. Thereby, the development of AI is one of the biggest achievements of the human beings in the history. However, the risks related to the AI are inevitable. Some researchers believe that AI is programmed to do some serious damage to humanity. We can see the illustration of this in the movies like the Matrix, and Blade Runner 2049 etc. These highly intelligent machines could go in the wrong hands which can easily cause massive casualties on this planet. AI is being used in weapons of mass destruction which are extremely complex to handle and difficult to turn off (Tegmark).
The book on AI which we have been studying throughout the course could help us to design the curriculum for AI in the future. It is important to ruminate all the aspects of AI in one course including its benefits and risks, its implications in the past and the future. Students must know that AI works mimicking human behavior, just like human beings adapt the environment using different cognitive processes focuses on designing the machines which could imitate human behavior. Currently, AI is making people better students must learn the current application of AI in our daily life.
The content I have gone through the past few weeks really helped me to get the empath of how AI is an extension of the human mind. This has enabled us to make a few course suggestions. Similarly, some renowned Hollywood movies show an AI interface and how they are likely to control human beings in the near future. This memo has highlighted some key aspects that are needed to be incorporated into the AI curriculum for the students to comprehend AI in depth.
Works Cited
Frey , Carl Benedikt and Michael A. Osborne. "The future of employment: How susceptible are jobs to computerisation?" Technological Forecasting and Social Change (2017): 254-280.
Bryson, Joanna J. . The Past Decade and Future of AI’s Impact on Society. n.d. <https://www.bbvaopenmind.com/en/articles/the-past-decade-and-future-of-ais-impact-on-society/>.
Lader, Bhagirath Kumar . Some Thoughts on Artificial Intelligence Singularity. 2018. <https://medium.com/datadriveninvestor/some-thoughts-on-artificial-intelligence-singularity-3f16db2ae8ae#:~:text=As%20Wikipedia%20defines%20it%3A,unfathomable%20changes%20to%20human%20civilization.>.
OECD. Artificial Intelligence in Society. 2019. <https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/science-and-technology/artificial-intelligence-in-society_eedfee77-en>.
O'Neil, Cathy . Cathy O'Neil: Do Algorithms Perpetuate Human Bias? 2018. <https://www.npr.org/2018/01/26/580617998/cathy-oneil-do-algorithms-perpetuate-human-bias>.
RAINIE, LEE and JANNA ANDERSON. The Future of Jobs and Jobs Training. 2017. <https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2017/05/03/the-future-of-jobs-and-jobs-training/>.
Tegmark, Max . BENEFITS & RISKS OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE. n.d. <https://futureoflife.org/background/benefits-risks-of-artificial-intelligence/?cn-reloaded=1>.
Walch, Kathleen . Why The Race For AI Dominance Is More Global Than You Think. 2020. <https://www.forbes.com/sites/cognitiveworld/2020/02/09/why-the-race-for-ai-dominance-is-more-global-than-you-think/#7be3c785121f>.