Artificial Intelligence: Technology of the Future, Today

Written By: Nathan Eskridge

No longer a thing of science fiction, artificial intelligence is a rapidly-evolving technology that could change the future as we know it.

Artificial intelligence, also known as AI, has been an idea ever since we started dreaming up uses for computers. The idea of AI grew with computer processing power and slowly became a reality.

Computers today are powerful enough to run the complex thought processes needed to make artificial intelligence a reality.

AI is here and probably here to stay with the way things are going. Almost everybody with a smartphone has a basic version of AI. Google Now and Siri are both AIs designed to help answer questions for you using the web as a database.

Companies are working toward making a stable AI that can think and problem solve without the help of external guidance. Right now, many groups are making AI that can troubleshoot and problem solve by trial and error. Sometimes the result can be eerily life-like.

With the growth of this new technology, many questions have been raised. Works of science fiction have been based around AI becoming too intelligent and then waging war against obsolete humans. As outlandish as that sounds, it isn’t hard to imagine.

Bright minds like Elon Musk, CEO of Telsa, Inc., have expressed concern about the possibility of world-ending technology. Some people believe a thing with no moral compass may make decisions that are technically true but overall cause long-term damage.

Many also believe that with the help of AI the world might become a better and more efficient place if used in the correct fields. AI is already being developed to do these tasks. The places AI could be used to improve them are really endless. The idea of a possible amoral thing making decisions could lead to a more efficient world but a less caring one.

For AI to really become a necessity for daily life, the people who will be living with it need to accept it. After a small poll conducted around the campus, most participants seemed pretty optimistic about the uses of AI, but most also saw the dangers of it.

Nathan Young, 19, stated, “AI can do certain things really well but giving AI a higher sentience is asking for trouble.”

Several others believed it could do jobs really well and may end up doing them too well, possibly taking a lot of jobs away from humans.

Ben Carson, 17, was concerned by the same problem, stating that AI “makes life easier for us, could make us too reliant on it”.

Some pointed out how AI could be hacked and used against those who created it. Lillian Banghart, 17, talks about an AI named Sophia who was granted citizenship in Saudi Arabia. They believe that “some people may start to argue that these robots being built can hold the same level of life a human has and begin controversy over whether they should or shouldn’t be shut off.” The line defining when something is alive is starting to be challenged again.

For something to become useful, usually the technology has to be widely accessible to anyone, reliable and safe, and it needs to solve a problem lots of people have. Artificial intelligence is already widely available through smartphones but still needs improvement to become better at solving problems and being safe. Both issues are being worked on and applications for it are everywhere.

AI is here and we are just now really thinking about what it might do to our society.