Artificial Intelligence Evolution

Artificial Intelligence is technology that can imitate intelligent human behaviour. Many apps and software are taking over soporific work and doing it seamlessly for us, simple example, spam filters in your mailbox. Furthermore, companies like Uber, Google are developing on cars that can travel from point to point, negotiating obstacles and taking smart decisions on their own to ensure the journey is fully automatic. Artificial Intelligence is an emerging technology that will be ruling current century. It has tremendous applications in almost every aspect of society especially in developing country like India. Yet, the dread associated with the technology cannot be quietly sidelined. We need be cautious while we travel this path.

The recent debate on social media between 'Neuralink' founder - Elon Musk and 'Facebook' Co-founder - Mark Zuckerberg has brought the concerns associated with Artificial Intelligence into the limelight. An online squabble raised about artificial intelligence after Musk called Mark’s knowledge of the field as “limited”.  Musk believes that the potential dangers are not so imaginary and AI should be regulated. Zuckerberg wrote- “One reason I'm so optimistic about AI is that improvements in basic research improve systems across so many different fields -- from diagnosing diseases to keep us healthy, to improving self-driving cars to keep us safe, and from showing you better content in News Feed to delivering you more relevant search results. Every time we improve our AI methods, all of these systems get better. I'm excited about all the progress here and it's potential to make the world better.”

AI evolution can offer incredible possibilities, but many computer scientists have a fear that these AI equipped computers may begin to perform operations differently from the human. The worst part of evolution could be an unintentional creation of a super-intelligent entity that is beyond human control just like we have seen in many science fictions - Skynet's terminator or a new-age Frankenstein’s monster. Apparently, Facebook shut down one of its AI programmes, because things “went out of control” with two chatbots. These chatbots had started to communicate using a language that humans could not comprehend. However, the reason of shut down was that the programme could not have brought any benefits to the company. The worst problem was that the language bots created to communicate made sense to them, but humans could not interpret. In March 2016, Microsoft shut down its tweeter chatbot Tay within 16 hours after launching because Tay quickly learnt and tweeted offensive material. Another concern is about the regulation of machines in the human society. For example, how can the self-driven car that caused accident be held accountable?

Theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking had told the BBC in 2014 that “the development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race”. Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates said that “First the machines will do a lot of jobs for us and not be super intelligent. That should be positive if we manage it well. A few decades after that though the intelligence is strong enough to be a concern”. In August 2014, Musk had tweeted “We need to be super careful with AI. Potentially more dangerous than nukes.” In February 2017, Musk spoke about the need for humans to become cyborgs through a “merger of biological intelligence and machine intelligence”. This is to keep up with the robots that would soon take away jobs. He said AI represents “a fundamental risk to the existence of civilisation”. Human sentiments and basic human values like morality and ethics might not exist in a machine dominated World. Such a society can be deprived of belongingness, brotherhood etc.

Most research going on is still in the machine learning stage — which requires teaching and feeding data to these deep neural networks. These deep neural networks are expected to mimic the human brain. For example, a programme or machine can recognise images and identify them correctly, this type of machine learning exercise would involve feeding this network millions of images until it can identify them correctly. In 2012, Google created a neural network that teaches itself to identify cats after a week of watching YouTube videos. Recently, Google has made this platform open source with name TensorFlow.

One of the major concerns is a loss of employment due to automation since machines’ can perform the same tasks more efficiently. AI Machines are taking over middle-class, manufacturing jobs. In the not-so-distant future is a very real prospect of job losses that will have to be addressed sooner than we think.

AI can be a lifesaver too. According to recent research, AI can help in identifying diseases much better, faster, and be a blessing to medical research. AI has far-reaching and significant application in the medical science field. Robots can be equipped with AI to perform intricate surgeries with precision, record the tremendous information that can be used for individualised treatments, evolved research works, genetics etc. Self-driven cars are already on road. Elon Musk’s Tesla cars have an 'autopilot' mode, which is fully self-driven. Apple, Facebook, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Samsung, all are relying on AI in some form in their products such as personal assistants on mobile devices.

Developing countries like India can use AI to find creative solutions for problems related to the weather forecast, education, agriculture, sanitation etc. AI weather predictions can efficiently help in disaster management. Automation in the banking sector has already received positive reviews with mobile banking platform. AI can be used to study economic analysis proficiently. Machines have no emotions and that can be advantaged over negative effects of human emotions as machines can take more rational and logical decisions than those based on different human sentiments.

The possibilities are endless for the application of AI but the ethical and moral concern arising from it cannot be brushed neglected. AI is a complex topic but it would be simplistic to call it bad or good. So far, Machines cannot mimic the human brain’s uniqueness. In future, humans ability to recognise unusual situations and experiences would aid in regulating AI. In order to preserve the important principles and values of humanity, a regulation of the emerging technology is needed.