I assume everybody has heard about AI by now. It promises to revolutionize our lives in areas such as automation, manufacturing and assembly line, in healthcare with improved diagnosis and medical treatment, in language processing and speech recognition, in autonomous cars, finance, etc.
Sounds to good to be true, right?
Maybe not today but in the future it might and i’m sure it will. Just imagine how much better our lives would be. No more wasting time on useless repetitive jobs and finally enjoying life doing something you love for a change. And now imagine that everybody in the world could do the same. Could AI really help create something as subjective as utopia?
Knowing human nature as i do, i’m entitled to my doubts.
Sure, AI can be a great tool. It has the potential to enhance human capabilities, assist in decision making in a some areas and increase efficiency and productivity. It’s not infallible though, it can be subject to mistakes or biases depending on the data that it’s learning from. And i’m not even talking about the possibility of AI sentience and all the benefits and risks associated. In my opinion human and Artificial Intelligence are not so different, what tears them apart is the vast amount of data that AI is able to process and the ability to analyze it objectively, which allows it to make predictions, identify patterns, and make decisions with a high degree of accuracy.
The revolution it promises will definitely lead to changes.
I think that the most important change will be tied to the way we view work in general. A majority of the people will lose their jobs to an AI simply because of the benefits it brings, and as it becomes more influential in the workforce, it is likely to change the nature of work and the types of jobs that are available. Automation and increased efficiency may lead to job displacement in certain sectors, but it could also create new job opportunities in other areas.
Humanity will need to adapt to these new times and those who don’t, will be doomed to fail. Some may outright refuse to adapt and reject AI altogether, others may worship it almost as a god. Some will have access to it’s benefits if they can afford it while others wont. It may turn our lives in an utopia, or it can divide us even further exacerbating our existing social and economic inequalities.
One thing is certain AI will never be consensual.
