The Meeting of Hollywood and Reality. AI: Good or Evil?

 

It is October and a perfect time to discuss the scary and the spooky. This is how I view the thought of Artificial Intelligence.

There have been numerous movies and books on the subject, like The Terminator by James Cameron (1984) in which an army of AI has been created with one computer to rule them all and taking over the world with but a few brave humans fighting this hostile takeover. There are numerous movies involving this type of conquest. The Minority Report directed by Stephen Spielberg (2002) uses AI to predict what someone might do in the future, rather than remembering that choices are fluid. People who might do something illegal are arrested before they can commit the crime which argues if they have not committed the crime, why the arrest? The future is not written in stone. There was a time when this type of story lived within the realm of science fiction. Here we are. We are living in the world of sci-fi.

AI is not always the bad guy. Take the Terminator- he comes around in the end. Disney’s Wall-E, the loveable robot who proves that robots can love and hope and save humanity. With that image in mind- do we need to worry? Which image is the “correct” one?

 AI is being used more and more in our daily lives. Siri (or Alexia) helps you make a phone call in your car or helps with tasks around the house. AI is being used to answer basic questions on a company’s website reducing wait times, and running analytics to further improve your customer experiences.  

There has been recent concern from programmers that AI could outsmart people perhaps making “2001 A Space Odyssey” more likely. 

World powers are scrambling together to come up with regulations on a global scale working to utilize and encourage innovation and technology while minimizing risk and misuse.

It is important to remember that, at least initially, AI is created by programmers and coders which can impede access to resources or cause faulty results due to biases within the algorithm codes.

Having our privacy infringed upon, or loosing out on jobs because of a faulty algorithm is very concerning yet . . . AI is ingrained within our culture and that is before we start talking about robots. Besides gaming (think chess, and even some of the interactive games) farmers are using AI for self-driving tractors, pest control, and irrigation systems allowing for smart decision making instead of using guess work. AI is being used in our healthcare systems for disease detection, diagnostics, and operations. In fact, a robot helped rebuild my husband’s knee recently making cleaner and less stressful bone cuts than the surgeons could do alone.  These are just a few of the ways that AI is being used for our benefit.

 Is there risk? Are there concerns? Absolutely – but there is always risk in innovations and without taking the chance, there is stagnation and extinction.

Interested in knowing more? Check out the hotel whose robotic AI staff attends to the customers needs