AI: The Game-Changer of Our Time or a Threat to Our Future?

What is AI?

AI or artificial intelligence are computer systems or programs that are capable of doing tasks that typically require human intelligence. These systems are are designed to learn from data and improve their performance over time without requiring any additional inputs or programming. In short it can improve on itself without you telling it to, don't you wish the whole world was like that? AI can have a huge range of uses and applications over any industry it can be applied to. For instance the monotonous or repetitive tasks like data entry can be delegated to an AI system which can do it more efficiently than a human, saving time, money and effort.

The Current State of AI

So we know what AI is but what can it do? What are the possibilities and potentials of this kind of technology? I cannot say. At this point in time AI is very new and rapidly evolving. In the recent years thanks to advancements in machine learning, language processing and computer vision have allowed AI to make significant breakthroughs in image and speech recognition, language processing and predictive analytics. AI can be used to create art even or maybe the proper term is generate art. Nowadays AI can mimic human speech and alter videos and pictures to the users specifications. This brings me to the bad side of AI.

 

AI and it's Vulnerabilities

AI is a useful tool for humanity as a whole. But what if it is abused and not operated the way it is intended without any guidelines or laws? Well we can see it's results as some people use AI to create conflict. Videos of politicians inciting war or audio that is AI generated is used to scam people or worse, steal their whole identity. Crimes are being committed using AI generated voices where families around the world think their children are kidnapped when in reality it was done with AI. AI can pose security threats as it be hacked into and release the data it carries. AI can also be misused to control information and create biases which might seem to have no affect but when it affects the whole population, we can see it's results very quickly, as it can affect people's opinions and much more.

 AI and it's Future

As of now, AI is in it's infancy.  Pretty soon, a lot of jobs will be taken over by AI, such as the more mundane and less intensive tasks. This might seem like a bad thing, but that depends on the person you ask. As AI eats up these jobs, it will create new ones and people will be ready to take those jobs. But exactly at what point does AI stop growing? Theoretically it has no end. Well, what if AI becomes sentient? Well, we have all seen the Terminator movie, hopefully we are not around by then. But that kind of AI is at minimum quite a few decades away according to experts. But it would be interesting to see how we can push this new technology to its limits. Or maybe in trying to find that limit, it will be us finding our limit.

    Hopefully not the near future: