Introduction
Artificial Intelligence is a technology that has the ability of mimic human actions. It has the one characteristic that our old classic machines have lacked – human intelligence – or at least a pretty good replica of it.
AI has the ability to learn from past mistakes and each time it does an action, it learns from it. Many ponder whether AI has the capacity to surpass human performance in specific domains and replace certain jobs. With the fast development in technology, one can only wonder what’s in store for us. This is an obvious question to ask – what does AI have in store for us?
Current uses and importance
We may not realize it yet but AI is already an important part of our life as AI is already used widely in many sectors.
· Data collection and profile building –
Used often in IoT – specifically in parts of internet curated for the user - AI is quite efficient and advanced in profile building. One of the main reasons of this is that AI is able to detect a pattern in human behaviour online and is accurately able to predict their behaviour. This data is often used for commercial and marketing purposes.
· Accuracy –
Human nature is to make mistakes. Everyone messes up now and then but often perfection is expected of humans. AI reduces scope of mistakes and mishaps by eliminating the factor of human nature.
· Reduces downtime –
Many industries demand efficiency and maximum output in minimum time. AI run machines and software are often faster and more efficient than human workers.
Research
These are many important functions that AI plays in our day to day life but what role is it going to play in the near future? To answer this question I made a deep dive into public and MNCs’ perception of AI by reading articles on the internet and interviews on experts to have a well -rounded understanding on the subject. I noted down important information I discovered along the way. My results showed that there are really two vastly different answers to this question.
A section of society finds the human- like behavior of AI unsettling and scary. The idea of a machine having intelligence close to that of humans does seem to feel superficial.
CEO of google, Sundar Pichai recently warned us to beware of what AI could turn into. This seems to be a widely accepted consensus. I found it quite common that people are scared of AI for a variety of reasons – from irrational fears of AI from movies and shows portraying them in bad light to AI being a replacement to humans bringing unemployment and leading to a dystopian world run by machines with no character or creativity.
On the other hand, many seemed to have a balanced and informed opinion. AI has made everyone’s life easier but no one want it to happen to a large extent. Everyone still wants to live in a human – run world but with the fruits of technology.
Inference
The main takeaway from this detailed analysis and research was that humans are ready to welcome AI in fields of hospitality and marketing but are not ready to trust them with critical careers like that of surgeons or careers driven by creativity like designers. Almost all surveys and articles I read suggested that society is not ready yet to give space to AI in more demanding professions like doctors ,lawyers, scientists, singers, actors, designers, engineers etc.
There is a pattern here. Society is willing to trust AI with low level jobs which do not affect anyone in an impactful way but are not willing to accept AI in careers demanding of high intelligence and emotional quotient or those that require human qualities that AI doesn’t possess like leadership or creativity.
My opinion and conclusion
Concluding this I would like to add my own views and inference from this research. I am lead to believe that AI will never actually replace human in this world but will ease our way of life. It smooths out day-to-day activities for us. But in the long run, it will just stay a subordinate to the human race. We create the AI and for this very reason it will never overtake our race. Most professions in today’s world run on deep in-built human qualities which in this day and age seem impossible to imbed into an AI run machine. We will face AI more over the years as it will continue to enter more into our lives but it will never truly take over any part of our life or society.