Rethinking the Pros and Cons of Artificial Intelligence

As technology advances, many people begin to question the advantages and disadvantages of this growing field. Specifically, people concentrate on the area of artificial intelligence. So what is artificial intelligence?

According to the online educational resources organized by Massachusetts Institute of Technology, artificial intelligence includes computational models of human behaviour and thought processes that behave intelligently.

Artificial intelligence is when a system interprets information from its environment, processes it, and then applies it to reach its intended target. While artificial intelligence is revolutionizing our society in positive ways, it still has many disadvantages and limitations.

Factories around the world are beginning to acquire machinery that utilizes artificial intelligence. An obvious benefit of using artificial intelligence is the increased efficiency and productivity in workplaces and factories. Most major vehicle manufacturers can produce up to 1,400 cars per day in one production plant with the help of an efficient, robotic production line. While the production rate and efficiency increase, the need for human workers at factories decrease.

Automobile manufacturers are a good example to illustrate the problem of robots replacing human labourers. Almost all car manufacturers have now put production lines solely with robotic arms in use. They now only use humans for precise detailing and supervising the work done by the autonomous machines.

According to previous studies, there has been a total of 4.76 million jobs lost due to different forms of automation and artificial intelligence being employed. Many assembly line workers, drivers and cashiers have already had their jobs taken by automation.Another possible threat to workers worldwide is that over five million truck and taxi drivers are susceptible to replacement by popularity-gaining, self-driving automatic vehicles. So, where do the drivers and other people replaced by intelligent machines go? Unfortunately, the unemployed workers will have to re-qualify for a new occupation requiring a new skill set. This can take a long time for adjustment and be challenging. Workers not only lose their jobs, but also lose their years of seniority and receive a reduced salary. This causes an inequality in our society by distributing wealth unevenly.

Social inequality is evident in many different ways. Due to the high demand for artificial intelligence, the prices of autonomous machines increase. This causes a high percentage of revenue to concentrate in the hands of only a few technology developers. Since artificial intelligence is such a complex and technical field, it often requires people with diverse skills and higher education.

Generally, people without financial means do not always have equal access to educational opportunities or tertiary education. Therefore, they are not given a chance to develop the skills necessary to work in this high-demand area. Instead, they may find a job that has a risk of being replaced by robots.

This vicious cycle shows how the field of artificial intelligence can possibly deprive people without financial capacity of an equal opportunity for employment in the technology field.

In addition, inequality is further perpetuated when interactive robots inherit the developer’s personal subjective prejudices and stereotypes. For example, if a programmer favoured one social group over another, this way of thinking could be directly conveyed into the robot through the program, causing it to act unfairly and inappropriately towards those specific social groups. It is important to bear in mind that these limitations can cause serious social consequences.

Another debatable topic about automation is the question of safety. Surely, artificial intelligence can help with jobs in an unsafe work environment.

Rather than humans risking their lives in dangerous conditions, robots can perform dangerous tasks, preventing human workers from injury. For example, robots spearheading dangerous jobs in a coal mine will prevent human workers from inhaling toxic fumes.

This is a great advantage to humans. Robots are generally well-suited for repetitive, routine, and predictable jobs. They are generally not ideal for unpredictable jobs requiring a high level of interpretation or decision making. Therefore, artificial intelligence may also cause harm to us by making incorrect decisions. For instance, more people are beginning to rely on self-driving cars, which can be fatal if the vehicles make wrong decisions. This shows how people can be led to believe freely that they can put their lives in the hands of a robot.

Artificial intelligence can present safety as a concern or a benefit, and therefore, a proper balance between these two concepts must be struck.

Automation and artificial intelligence certainly have numerous benefits, each coming with its own downside. We only examined here a handful of the potential hazards of robotization. We certainly welcome the benefits of a streamlined and fool-proof completion of tasks, safe performance in undesirable work conditions, however they impose threats upon our jobs and general lives by taking away jobs, potentially acting unethically, and distributing wealth and opportunities unfairly. Therefore, it is imperative that lawmakers, large enterprises, and major players in this field must keep in mind the consequences and dangers posed by over-robotization of our society. The bottom line is: how far should we go in implementing artificial intelligence in our daily lives?