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What is artificial intelligence or A.I.? It may seem the answer should intuitively be straightforward. In fact, the definition of A.I. is rather controversial and somewhat a moving target. In a narrow sense, artificial intelligence (A.I.) is intelligence exhibited by non-biological systems or machines - cognitive functions performed by machines, such as learning, reasoning, planning, creativity, and problem solving, etc. Weak A.I. (or narrow A.I.) is considered as non-sentient A.I. which can function in a narrow set of mental tasks humans perform, such as speech recognition, image recognition, playing Go game and self-driving cars. Narrow A.I. does not involving semantic understanding or consciousness. It is essentially a simulation of human cognitive functions. On the other hand, strong A.I. is considered as general artificial intelligence which involves consciousness and semantic understanding. It is worth noting that whether machines can ever gain consciousness is still debatable, given the nature of consciousness is largely unknown. Many believes that, in principle, machine consciousness should be achivable since human brain itself operates on the fundamental laws of physics and chemistry.
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The rise of “A.I.” (artificial intelligence) seems unavoidable. Almost all the major tech giants such as Google, Facebook, IBM and Apple invested heavily in the research of development of “neural networks” and “machine learning”. And there are more companies to join. The near-term benefits are undeniable. Its use may range from self-driving cars to reading CT and X-ray films. It promises to solve mankind’s most aggravating problems such as pollution and global warming, and find cure for cancer, diabetes and chronic renal failure. It may one day even “cure” death, the inevitable fate we accept naturally. On the other hand, with rapid progression of A.I. development, the “dark side” of A.I. is looming large. The near-term concerns may include social and economic implications. It will first invade into the labor market and replace a good part of the workforce. Many high-quality jobs will be lost to A.I. Essentially, A.I. will discount the value of human performance. It is quite possible that only a small number of people will benefit from it in this coming era. A small bunch of people will have access to the unmeasured power of A.I., resulting in even further concentration of power and wealth. This could potentially lead to the reversal of democracy, the best system we can come up with thus far.
In the long-term, the outcome may be even more glooming. Some of the world’s greatest celerity inventors and thinkers such as Elon Musk, Bill Gates and Stephen Hawkins have even voiced their concerns about the potential harms A.I. might bring upon us. They were not talking about the job losses replaced by cheap robots and the ensued social unrest and economic chaos. They were actually talking about the “Terminator” scenario, with Elon Musk calling blindly engaging in A.I. research “summoning the demon”. Conspiracy theorists even went as far as suggesting that the goal of Elon Musk’s Space X program is not for commercial space travel but preparing for a doom’s day scenario when human must flee from earth to avoid annihilation by the machines. While these scary ideas may appear as far-fetched as science fictions, it may hold some hidden truth which may elude common sense. Regardless, because of the implication is so perilously severe, no matter how small the chance it might be it deserves seriously consideration.
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