Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly changing the environments of just about everything – from translation to speech recognition to jobs to decision-making processes. AI, with its thousands of promised benefits, is positioned to affect just about every business around the globe. But with all the hype surrounding what AI can automate and relieve human beings from manually having to do themselves, is AI truly the blessing it’s presented itself to be – or a curse?
Many AI applications have life-enhancing potential, so holding back its development is undesirable and possibly unworkable. This speaks to the need for a more connected and coordinated multi-stakeholder effort to create norms, protocols, and mechanisms for the oversight and governance of AI.
The advantages of AI are enormous and can revolutionise any professional sector. There are chances of reduced human error. With AI, the decisions are taken from the previously gathered information applying a certain set of algorithms. So errors are reduced and the chance of reaching accuracy with a greater degree of precision is a possibility.
One advantage of AI is to overcome risky limitations of humans by developing an AI robot to do risky things like bomb defuse or ‘travel to space.’ Also, it can work 24x7. An average human will work for eight hours a day. Humans are built in such a way as to stay intact with their work-life and personal life. But by using AI we can make machines work 24x7 without any breaks and they do not even get bored, unlike humans.
By using AI we can productively automate repetitive job work. Some of the highly advanced organisations use digital assistants to interact with users, saving the need for human resources. The digital assistants are also used in many websites to provide things that users want. While taking a decision humans will analyse many factors both emotionally and practically but AI-powered machine works on what it is programmed and delivers the results in a faster way.
Daily applications such as Apple’s Siri, Window’s Cortana, Google’s OK Google are frequently used in our daily routine whether it is for searching a location, taking a selfie, making a phone call, replying to a mail and many more.
AI also has some disadvantages. It is feared that AI would be making humans lazy. The work gets automated and humans tend to get addicted to these inventions, which may cause problems for future generations. It has created fear of unemployment: Every organisation is looking to replace the minimum-qualified individuals with AI robots which can do similar work with more efficiency.
There are zero emotions and limited brains: There is no doubt that machines are much better when it comes to working efficiently but they cannot replace the human connection that makes the team. AI lacks ‘out of box’ thinking. Machines can perform only those tasks which they are designed or programmed to do, anything out of that they tend to crash or give irrelevant outputs which could be a major backdrop.
Geoffrey Hinton, a pioneer in artificial intelligence and a long-time leader of Google’s AI research division, has resigned from his position at the tech giant, citing growing concerns about the ethical implications of the technology he helped create. Hinton’s departure is the latest and most prominent sign of a growing rift between some of the world’s leading AI researchers and the tech companies that employ them. Many of these researchers have been raising alarms about the social, environmental and political impacts of AI, as well as the lack of transparency, accountability and diversity in the field.
These are some advantages and disadvantages of AI. Every new invention or breakthrough will have both, but we as humans need to take care of that and use the positive sides of the invention to create a better world. AI has massive potential advantages. The key for humans will ensure the ‘rise of the robots’ doesn’t get out of hand. Some people also say that AI can destroy human civilization if it goes into the wrong hands. But still, none of the AI applications made at that scale that can destroy or enslave humanity.
Recently, world leaders, scientists, and technologists have commented on the power of AI. While acknowledging its value, they have also expressed concern over its potential misuse.
(The writer is CEO and Co-founder, Umang Group and Chairman, ASSOCHAM IT Committee, Goa)
