Living in the Age of AI

     Living in the Age of AI is both exciting and terrifying. Just like anything else, there are positives and negatives to using AI. The exciting positives of AI include predictive analytics for sports and self-driving cars. The negatives of AI include loss of privacy and loss of jobs. AI has the potential to eliminate a multitude of jobs including positions such as secretary, cashier at grocery stores, and assembly line jobs at factories.  We have already seen self-checkout stations at grocery stores and superstores like Walmart. AI has already eliminated numerous jobs.


People get excited when they talk about AI and how it will change the future, and how machines and robots will make our lives easier. I don't think they realize that every machine and every robot in the future represents a human who has lost their job and their means to support their families. When people think of AI taking over jobs, they think of the self-checkout at Walmart and the self-service at fast food chains like McDonalds and Panera.

They don't realize that this is just the beginning. AI will soon be used in Law Firms to do research and could be used on the trading floors on Wall Street. The possibilities are endless. Why would a company make the transition to AI and let go of its employees? They will do this to be more efficient and make more profit. Without employees, there is no salary, no benefits, and no insurance to be paid per employee. America may not be the Land of Opportunity once AI takes off. Automation will be the substitute for human labor. In the Age of AI

The other major negative of AI is our loss of privacy. AI is the type of technology that is being taught how to learn through trial and error, similar to how a child learns. Not sure if anyone saw the movie War Games with Matthew Broderick, but in that movie the computer had to learn by going through every scenario to realize there would never be a winner.


In the movie, this made for a very exciting story, but in today's world AI is continuously learning about us and how we think and feel and this is a lot scarier than The War Games scenario. Today's AI algorithms dove into our daily lives and politics. Our computers today are collecting data on our likes, dislikes, and pretty much our views on every aspect of lives. Every time we do a search on Google we are giving very personal information to strangers. Every time we post something on Instagram we are not only sharing that information with friends and family but also with data collectors that will sell the information to the highest bidder. Each time we post we are sharing our thoughts, desires, and dreams. As the computer in War Games learned so do the computers of today. The scary thing is computers today are learning from our private information and are able to predict what we want to buy, eat, or how we will vote in an election. 

I think the thing that frightened me the most from this video was when they were discussing the surveillance state. According to the video, the surveillance state has been created and has been put in place. In the Age of AI China has cameras on every corner in certain cities to monitor political unrest. The Chinese government is watching. They have facial recognition and other software that can identify individuals by face or by how they walk. The Chinese government states that their software can predict individuals who have terrorist leanings and who need reeducation. They brag to other governments that they know how often people pray, and who they speak with on the phone. The Chinese government wants its surveillance system to be an example for other governments to prevent political unrest. This is scary because governments around the world could be tempted to use AI to only to gain power and control but also to keep it indefinitely. 


As you can see AI can used for good or for evil. We need some way to regulate AI and give power back to the individual so we can decide who sees our posts and pictures. We don't want strangers to know personal information about our likes and dislikes, especially without our knowledge or consent. The future of AI is going to be very interesting. I look forward to seeing how this plays out.  

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