I was reading an article online, immediately another similar article appeared on my screen. I didn’t have time to read the second article because I planned to read only one article. After seeing the second article, I started to read it without noticing my time. My priority changed because instead of reading one, I read two articles and obviously that affected my whole working schedule.
Suddenly I realized that what is controlling me, and my decision power?
I thought, am I choosing this article or this article is choosing me?
My mind was constantly asking me how am I controlled by something else?
Without any doubt, the incoming second article was choosing me instead of me choosing the article.
When we start to type something into Google, it predicts what we are thinking and typing. It remembers our past searches and it also remembers some similar searches by others.
These are only small glimpses that artificial intelligence (AI) is already affecting our lives.
Now a days, we are constantly bombarded by the term artificial intelligence (AI) all the time, but we have already adopted it unknowingly in our life. We have already reduced our brain memory significantly without much notice.
We wake up in the morning, rather than to see weather outside the window, we ask Siri and Alexa, what’s the weather outside. Amazing.
We have Siri, Alexa and Cortana as our Virtual AI assistants, already affecting significant portions of our personal and professional life.
We browse the google map to check the traffic before taking a next move towards office. Know the traffic situation while in the bed.
My wife always buys stuff from Amazon, at least, I don’t remember buying outfits and other utensils visiting any malls or department stores recently. She goes into the website to buy one thing but she ends up buying two more every time. By the time she clicks the purchase button, five more similar items appear on the side of her screen and she couldn’t resist not to buy.
Amazon is controlling her buying decision.
These consequences may seem like small leaks in our daily lives, but one day they might sink our entire ship if we are unaware of its implications.
The hard truth is, we are already swimming in AI, proprietary algorithms are making decisions for us.
An algorithm is a guide or a bunch of instructions that make a computer program which instruct a machine to make the next move.
Robots, software, and computers are about to disrupt us in many ways.
Fire was the first technology that humans discovered almost 1.5 million years ago.
Before 1940, nobody typically believed we would send a man to the moon, but just after 30 years, it happened.
Let’s look around us, we see TV, smartphone, laptop, tablet, and noise canceling bluetooth headphones. Every single thing was a dream idea for some smart minds in the past.
Twenty years ago, I wasn’t expecting that I would have a smartphone in my hand and I could call my mother instantly who is sleeping on the other side of the planet, and talk to her with her video on my screen.
Oh, how far we’ve come.
We are definitely moving towards superintelligent AI. Progress in technology also brings bewilderness, affecting our thinking, freedom, privacy, relationships, and happiness in different ways. Superintelligent AI is in our doorstep with both great danger and great possibilities ahead.
Human brain is very complicated because it is entangled with more than 86 billions neurons, even some connecting and disconnecting continuously, therefore, it is almost unhackable.
This is one of the main reasons AI is coming to explore human intelligence, human cognition, human behaviour, and human common sense.
How do we portray human common sense by technology? There is obviously a challenge, but we are exploring the trend of human psychology and physiology by artificial devices.
Typically, AI is an artificial construct revolving around software, computers, algorithms, and robotics.
This combination is about to bring an exponential feat, especially in technology.
Think of driverless cars and pilotless airplanes, they are not very far from regular access.
Autonomous weapons such as drones are already in use. These are already pilotless because they are controlled in the military bases on video monitors.
If you are living in Auckland, New Zealand, you can order pizza via drones at your home now. It is happening.
The same drone technology can be used to deliver food and medicines to remote under-developed areas. In 2018, Joy Nowai, one month baby became the first baby to receive a drone-delivered vaccine.
Think of robots, they do music composition and singing for our songs, we are about to experience it.
Ask, hey Alexa, can you play a romantic song for me?
You will have your favorite song right away but you wouldn’t identify human is singing or robot is singing. Most possibly, it would be robot singing.
Think of robot scientists and robot doctors, they will be serving us in the near future.
Almost twenty years ago, american surgeon Mani Menon used a robot to remove a cancerous prostate gland.
In the future, AI might cure our cancer, might accurately detect the risk for Alzheimer’s disease, and robots might perform more complicated open-heart surgery. AI experts already predicted that robotic surgical systems will be better than humans in all surgical procedures by 2053.
Robots will be the key players in the operating rooms because they will be able to draw fast and more accurate information from a CT or MRI scan than human radiologists.
Radiologist’s job is in serious danger in upcoming days.
IBM’s question-answering computer system, Watson, is already used by 90 percent of nurses.
Watson can read 25,000,000 published medical journal articles in a week, as 1.8 million scientific journal articles are published annually worldwide. This is impossible by a human doctor.
Think of the situation when AI will recognize our personality traits. It would be a new world.
What happens if we know our death ahead of time?
AI can accurately predict if a person would die in three to twelve months; Stanford researchers reported the preliminary AI death predictor.
The direction we are heading by technology carries a lot of societal responsibility than somebody’s individual technological breakthrough.
We have a huge responsibility to make our kids and grandkids prepared for unimaginable leap in technology associated with AI and robotics.
Our kids and grandkids won’t take these as new technology but as a new normal life.
Imagine for seconds when artificially intelligent scanners are used for face recognition and retinal scanners are used to upload our personal information.
Our personal information can be bought, sold, stolen, and molded for money.
It’s already happening by the tech giants like Google, Facebook, Amazon, and Netflix; as they store our personal information using our credit card, playlist, IP address, buying history etc. and use for their benefit.
When we use Facebook, Google, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Instagram,we are not paying for them now; but we are being used as products for them, and being monetized.
Our personal data is our precious asset and its importance will be quadrupled in the near future.
There is no doubt, we have to change the world, but we have to change it for the better and prosperous world, and we still need this change within the frame of our societal norm.
Technology is innocent.
It can completely wipe out the planet or provide us a new era of healthy and prosperous life. All depend on our use.
This might be the reason that Vladimir Putin, Russian President, once said, “Whoever becomes the leader in AI will become the ruler of the world.”
There is also a high possibility that the first trillionaire might be a person as an AI entrepreneur.
Human progress is unstoppable so that there is also a great hope.
When AI collaborates with blockchain, 3D printing and CRISPR, many mysteries of life could be revealed.
AI can be used to predict earthquakes, or reduce destruction from other natural disasters.
Aiserve is using AI-enhanced streetmaps as a tool for aiding the visually impaired people.
But whatever the progress we leap, we, the humans, have to lead everything.
When self-driving vehicle crashes into a human, we should take full responsibility.
We have to focus on what we as humans can do that machines can not.
It’s not only technology we should progress, we should also progress towards developing responsible citizens.
All these algorithms are human creations, therefore, human role is a must as a global citizen in the age of AI.
Thank you for your time.
-Yam Timsina