“Artificial Intelligence is likely to be either the best or the worst thing that could happen to mankind” — Stephen Hawking
When we look at AI, the first thought that comes to us are SCI-FI movies like WALL-E where AI threatens human existence. Be it Alexa “spying” on us or the fear of driverless cars causing accidents, AI has worried not only laymen like us but also top scientists of the world.
So, what is artificial intelligence? It is the building of machines so smart that they almost transcend human intelligence. AI is spread across many echelons from technology as simple as our spy Alexa to humanoids such as Honda’s ASIMO. The concept of AI is very intriguing, especially with new inventions emerging at such a fast rate that it is difficult to keep up. AI has made our lives much simpler. I would personally like to thank my Roomba for cleaning the house during the lockdown. But one gets to wondering why AI, despite the amazing opportunities it presents is still dreaded by a large proportion of the population.
Fear of automation
The biggest example can be Rambo (the name we gave our Roomba) replacing our maid during the lockdown. The reliability and accountability that Rambo has cannot be matched by any human, not even an avid cleaner like my mom. It has come to such a point that “he” as in Rambo, is an additional member of the family now. There have been many studies that have researched the effect of AI on job displacement. According to Oxford Economics, up to 20 million jobs would be lost worldwide to robots by 2030. This causes deep concern as one of India’s major pulls for FDI in manufacturing is cheap labour. Unless India starts the upskilling of labour, this can become a disaster in the future.
Effect of AI on racism, safety, etc.
The use of facial recognition systems in governance has attracted a lot of flak worldwide, especially in nations such as the USA & EU. This is mainly due to intense racial profiling, bias, and misidentification. The use of FRS in convicting protestors in the recent riots in Delhi is another example of how AI can affect the freedom of speech and expression detrimentally.
Although cybersecurity threats have been common much before AI, it makes these attacks much more complicated and sophisticated. AI technologies were even used to target specific governments and global security systems. AI not tested sufficiently can be harmful to individuals as well (Does anyone remember the google self-driving cars incident?).
Misaligned Intelligence
The fear of robots gaining a conscience and turning against humanity is a concern for many, and I must say the aforementioned SCI-FI movies do not help. This presents an extreme view of the adverse impacts of AI. Since AI is mainly based on the concept of machine learning and deep learning, it cannot gain consciousness on its own (for now), however, this does not mean that there is no cause for worry. Misaligned intelligence is the result of misaligned definitions of the objective functions that fail to address the programmer’s ultimate need and biased data. The movie WALL-E is a key example of this scenario where the autopilot decides to take over and tries to prevent the people to return to Earth due to a bunch of hastily given instructions.
Biased data is also of the main reasons that AI becomes detrimental. Historically African Americans were given harsher punishments and jailed more. Therefore when we use this crime data to predict the possibility of an individual committing a crime, it works against this race and we blame it on AI, when the reality was that AI just chose to process the information we chose to input.
Rationality v/s Emotions
It is very important to note that robots or any machine using AI cannot use emotions not can it have emotions (at least for now). Its decisions can be logical to a fault which in turn can lead to a lot of ethical dilemmas. Imagine an AI machine working out the trolley problem or even deciding on any utilitarian problem. It would mostly decide to kill a healthy human to save many others by donating healthy organs to them (yes, I know this is an extreme scenario but you get the point).
One must realize that all these threats that I discussed come with a huge baggage of speculations with a lot of ifs and buts. We must delve deeper to understand each case separately and ensure the positives outweigh the negatives before making decisions.
Ok, time for some data crunching. When it comes to employment, India has a market of $2 billion, with the growth of the automation sector at a whopping 11.6%, with AI having the potential to add $957 billion by 2035. According to the World Economic Forum’s “Future of Jobs 2018” report, AI has the potential to create 58 million new jobs, and mind you, this is taking into account the jobs displaced due to AI.
This stats overload is to erase the deep-rooted doubts many have against the employability of AI. India with its window of opportunity concerning the demographic dividend should ideally have all the reasons to be excited about this AI boom, provided there is a drastic shift in the way we skill our people and prepare them for this future.
The usefulness of AI has been visible especially in the COVID 19 pandemic-struck world. The use of AI robots in Kerala to take care of covid patients is one scenario which I in particular was very impressed by. AI is also very important towards geriatric care especially in countries such as Japan which is in the final stages of the demographic curve. It is very effective for use in extremely hostile environments such as space, deep-sea exploration, mining, etc. hence keeping us humans safe from danger. AI can improve governance by reducing the chances of corruption, preferential treatment, etc. The opportunities that AI presents are much more than what I have mentioned and I confidently say outweigh its negative characteristics.
It is very important that we spread awareness about AI and make people comfortable with its usage especially by busting the various myths around it. Our country needs to be flexible towards adopting the ever-evolving technologies to be competent in the global spectrum. It might be that the comment made by Mr Hawking, who ironically himself used AI to live his life, is directed towards us. It is we humans that have the ultimate intelligence and power to decide which path we want AI to take. To quote the poet by Robert Frost, “Two roads diverged in a wood”, one hopes to take the one that makes a difference for the better.