Artificial Intelligence as a Positive and Negative Factors in Human Life.

University Degree Mathematical and Computer Sciences

November 27th, 2011

s in Human Life.

According to Lloyd Humphreys, a famous psychologist, intelligence refers to “the resultant of the process of acquiring, storing in memory, retrieving, combining, comparing, and using in new contexts information and conceptual skill.” In other words, intelligence is a general capability to deal with cognitive complex. There are four general types of intelligence such as human intelligence, animal intelligence, plant cognition and artificial intelligence. Different from other types, artificial intelligence is not a natural information process. It simply is a program that was programmed by a programmer. This new technology has been applied efficiently and commonly in our lives. In this research, I will introduce precisely overview of artificial intelligence, and also the positive and negative sides of it in human life.

To help the readers follow easily my ideas, I have organized the paper into three main sections, two of which has three sub-sections. Firstly, to conduct a good overview of AI for readers, I will provide precisely AI’s time line from 1950 until 2011. Secondly, I have selected three best contributions that AI has brought for human’s life such as the way that AI helps to increase the efficiency in production, lift up our living standard and reduce risk in working for human. Finally, I will discuss the negative sides of AI such as replacing human workforce, overuse of AI in common life, and indirectly reason of underestimation human intelligence and creativity.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE OVERVIEW

Before starting the time line, we need to understand “what is artificial intelligence (AI)?” With the wide use of term “intelligence”, the different systems can display different definitions based on variety subsets of attributes of AI. As a result, to clarify the term, people often give the description about AI based on their knowledge instead of a precise or certain interpretation. For example, in scientific area, “AI is the science of intelligence. As a science, AI primarily involves falsifiable claims, i.e., testable hypotheses regarding the structures and processes that are necessary and sufficient for intelligent behavior” (Honavar 3). On the other hand, in study of engineering:

AI is a branch of engineering which is concerned with the mechanization of tasks that are believed to require intelligence when performed by human – e.g., providing theorems, planning trips, recognizaing faces diagnosing diseases, designing computers, composing music, discovering scientific laws, providing mathematical theorems, playing chess, writing stories, teaching physics, negotiating contracts, providing legal advice. (Honavar 3)

In conclusion, in my view point, artificial intelligence is an effort of human to make computer think and follow the demand of human step by step based on a pre-written program.

This is a preview of the whole essay

In conclusion, in my view point, artificial intelligence is an effort of human to make computer think and follow the demand of human step by step based on a pre-written program.

Back to 1950, since Alan Turing’s paper, “Computing machinery and intelligence”, predicted that there would be no gap between an answer received from a computer and a human, Artificial intelligence (AI) had arrived. In the Dartmouth conference in 1956, Allen Newell and Herbert Simon debuted the “Logic Theorist”, and John McCarthy persuaded the attendees to create a new field which named “Artificial Intelligence. The period from 1956 to 1974 was considered as a golden years of AI. In 1956, Cyberneticist William Ross Ashby believed AI would become a splicing of two software platforms, one of which is human brain. In 1959, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology set up AI lab. In 1961, according to Life magazine, an Ohio sausage producer had installed a room-sized machine. This is a start of AI era in production. In 1968, there was the first demonstration of programme could gather uncategorized information together by using Bayersian logic. In 1973, KUKA Robotics built the first articulated robot with visual perception known as FAMULUS. In 1985, AI market worth increased into $1 billion. In 1991, AI scheduling software first was used in Gulf War by U.S. In 1994, web crawlers became essential to search information in the internet. In 1996, AI-based company Autonomy was founded as a spin-off from Cambridge Neurodynamics. In 1997, IMB Deep Blue supercomputer won over Garry Kasparov at chess. In 2002, “Intelligent” Honda ASIMO robot was launched. In 2010, Rabonaut 2 was launched to the space station and became the first humanoid robot in space.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AS POSITIVE FACTORS

We’ve come a long way from 60 years timeline of artificial intelligence, so how is this “so good” technology doing in our lives? As expectation of many scientists, AI has helped us make a big move in development of human.

Artificial intelligent has boosted up manufacturing. The article “The Rise of The Machines” (2011) by Mark Chillingwork reports on the role of artificial intelligence (AI) systems in business strategy. According to technology expert at the PSNA College of Engineering and Technology in Dindigul, India, AI systems can make numerous innate human skills, such as case-based reasoning, automatic programming, decision-making, neural networks and natural language processing. John Bates, vice-president of Progress Software claims AI systems can help in making better decisions, automating processes and looking for patterns. In other words, instead of hiring hundreds employees, the smart system can finish work more effectively. As a reduction in number of employees or working hours, the company can have a higher profit, and employees can have a better work environment with the same wage. On the other hand, back to story of an Ohio sausage in 1961 of Life magazine, the room-sized machine could analyze all the ingredients available to the company and provide employees with the best possible recipe for bologna. In addition, it took 36 minutes for the machine to compute the information and deliver an answer. In conclusion, AI helps human to produce faster, more efficient and more accurately.

Artificial intelligence has lift up the living standard of human. Nowadays, AI has entered everyone’s daily life. In a basic standard house, there are many electric appliances that are run by AI such as: washing machine, dish washer, computer, rice cooker, refrigerator, and so on. About transportation, AI is used to program the system for car, subway, train and plane. Now, we can contact with a long distance friend just by email or internet call in some minutes. We can find anything that used by smart program everywhere such as school, workplace, amusement park, market, and so on. Moreover, we can even have robotic dog for playing or robotic teacher. Besides boosting up production, AI has also increase our lives. It makes our lives more convenient and more comfortable.

Artificial intelligence helps to reduce risk for human. In1995, the Great Hanshin earthquake occurred in Kobe, Japan. With a local magnitude of 7.2, the earthquake caused approximately more than 6000 deaths, and hundreds structural damages. The limit of ability human at that moment brought about a 15-years deployment of search and rescue robot. The technology that used for search and rescue robots includes artificial intelligence, sensing, communications, materials, and mechanical engineering. The inventors hope the robot can achieve all helpful applications such as search and rescue, reconnaissance and mapping, rubble removal, supply delivery, medical treatment, and casualty evacuation. Moreover, the robot can not only increase the rate of saving victims, but also lower the risk that rescuers have. Even though the robot is still in process, it is a good example of positive side of AI.

In this present – 2011, AI technologies are major forces for improvement in the information technology system of all company in all sectors. The role of AI has grown further and higher to bring more and more benefits for development of human’s life.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AS NEGATIVE FACTORS

With the strong development of artificial intelligence, the technologies have integrated so smoothly into our lives. Therefore, people rarely realize how heavy we depend on AI. As a result, there are three main negative sides of AI to human.

Artificial intelligence is replacing human workforce. As I mention in the last section, AI has improved the productivity in all sectors such as agriculture, service and industry. In first half of twentieth century, technological advances of AI caused a movement of workers from agricultural to industrial production. In other second half, they brought about another movement from industrial production to service. By the way, AI has built a high level of acceptance and trust to take a step into the service sectors as service workers. As a result, AI made services more efficient and more profitable. In contrast, this impact of AI leads to big reduction in the service workers and service jobs when people need to work longer. With the debut of machines run by AI, there are more new jobs such as machine controller, or maintenance technician; but, the number of positions of new jobs cannot make up to the number of positions which has been replaced by the machine. “We may have to shift attention from whether people will be able to retire to whether they’ll be forced to.” (Malerich 23) If the replacement continues, the same as the second half of the twentieth century, there will be massive numbers of layoffs and large incentives for early retirement in the future.

Human has been overusing of artificial intelligence in common life. When I say how much AI helps us in common life, it also has another side which states a fact that we depend on AI heavily. I will give a very simple example, the impact of computer virus. In customer service department, there are thousands of documents to answer questions and solve problems. To solve the data mountain, company must install a smart system can organize and distribute the data automatically based on case’s characteristic. Therefore, if virus attacks all computer system in this service department, the only choice that manager and employees have to make is waiting for technique maintenance. As a result, at that moment, the workers can start to realize how they depend on computer and machine. In other circumstance, there are many times that virus has frozen all the systems of transportation such as train, subway, or even traffic light. Since people have used AI system for everything, it is takes a long time to fix all systems. During this time, there are many unfortunately accidents. In conclusion, AI can lift up our living standard, so it also can pull down us. The misjudgment of bad potential of AI can lead more dangerous hazel in our society.

Artificial intelligence is indirectly reason of decline in human intelligence and creativity. In “Artificial Intelligence as a Positive and Negative Factor in Global Risk” by Eliezer Yudkowsky, the author contends people usually have confusion of definition of “intelligence.” For example, when someone mentions of the term “intelligence.”, we tend to think about a professor with an IQ 160, or a billion with an IQ 120 instead of human. This wrong concept leads us to underestimate our intelligence. Similarly, humans believe that they have no match with a technology called artificial intelligence. They forget the fact that AI is still programmed by human, so a machine that is run by AI finds it difficult to adapt to new situation. Since the expectation of humans is so low, they will discourage to improve their abilities. As a result, the natural intelligence and creativity starts to decline.

CONCLUSION

As I say before, it is important to remember that humans are still better than machines at learning from complex experiences and dealing with ambiguity. Even now, IBM’s upper computers just have 147,456 processors and 144 TB of memory which just equal the brainpower of a cat. If humans keep underestimate themselves, and overestimate intelligence of machine and computer, humans will just end up with the negative sides of AI. In other words, the fact that we can have benefit or loss, depends on the way we use it. In conclusion, artificial intelligence is helping human to have an easier life, or is replacing humanity to dominate the world? The argument around this problem is still an open question in this present because no one knows how humans use artificial intelligence in the future. But, I believe we, humans are the ones decide it.

Reference:

Anthes, Gary. “Robots Gear Up For Disaster Response.” Communications of The ACM (2010): 15-16. Business Source Complete. Web. 27 Nov. 2011.

Chillingworth, Mark. “The Rise of The Machines.” Financial Management (2011): 32-34. Business Source Complete. Web. 27 Nov. 2011.

Honavar, Vasant. “Principles of Artificial Intelligence.” Iowa State University. (2006): 1-3. Web. 27 Nov. 2011.

Malerich, Steve. “Artificial Intelligence Displaces Service Workers.” Futurist (2009): 23-24. Business Source Complete. Web. 27 Nov. 2011.

Pelton, Joseph N. “Vision: Human-Level Artificial Intelligence. (Cover Story).” Futurist (2008): 36-38. Business Source Complete. Web. 27 Nov. 2011.

Yudkowsky, Eliezer. “Artificial Intelligence as a Possitive and Negative Factor in Global Risk.” Singularity Institute (2006): 7-9. Web. 27 Nov. 2011.