Reckoning essay 2: Artificial Intelligence: Utopia or Dystopia
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Course
BUS/MKTG (ENG321)
Institution
Thompson River University (TRU
)
When archeologists from another universe that harbors intelligent life visit earth a hundred years after our extinction the most interesting remains they excavate will be cyborgs and self-aware motor vehicles. Since the emergence of modern science in Europe, human life changed faster in five hundre...
When archeologists from another universe that harbors intelligent life visit earth a hundred years
after our extinction the most interesting remains they excavate will be cyborgs and self-aware
motor vehicles. Since the emergence of modern science in Europe, human life changed faster in
five hundred years than it did for over one hundred thousand years. This trend has been
accelerated recently by dramatic advancement of technology in the last few decades. None of
these technological advancements, however, has changed human life than artificial intelligence
(AI) is daring to do. With smartphones that make their owners appointments and fridges that
order groceries when they empty, machines are slowly taking over. This new revolution should
be a source of concern to everyone alive. The discussion, however, should not be about the ethics
and morals of AI but about how best human beings can utilize them and prepare for the next
phase of human existence.
Artificial intelligence occupying a central role in the future of human life is already
taking place. Most people like to look and think about AI as a future development which is not
yet here. They are mistaken. The internet and smart phones, for instance, have grown beyond
human control and nowadays occupy such central roles in human life that they cannot be
replaced. Social websites use algorithms so advanced, doing tasks that would take the best
computer scientists thousands of hours in Nano-seconds. “We already have artificial intelligence
in many of our machines; we just don’t call it that. Witness one piece of software by Narrative
, Surname 2
Science (profiled in issue 20.05) that can write newspaper stories about sports games directly
from the games’ stats or generate a synopsis of a company’s stock performance each day from
bits of text around the web” (Kelly, 301). Until recently only human beings could form patterns
and unpredictable complex data to form reasonable conclusions. What the software by Narrative
Science does requires extensive analytical knowledge and sufficient intelligence. Doing these
tasks effectively and without human help, therefore, proves that artificial intelligence is already
here.
Thus far the presence of AI has been largely helpful. Going into the future, human beings
must embrace artificial intelligence. People who oppose this new phase of human existence do so
out of fear and ignorance of its inevitability. The future in which machines, robots, internet, and
other forms of artificial intelligence are in every area of human life is unavoidable. As noted in
the paragraph above this is already happening in a slow but sure way. Over the last few decades
the progress made in technological sciences is evidence that the match towards artificial
intelligence can neither be slowed nor stopped. “It is a safe bet that the highest-earning
professions in the year 2050 will depend on automations and machines that have not been
invented yet” (Kelly, 302). Jobs are an important part of the world we have created. Through
labor and wages people get the necessary tools of survival; money and meaning. Artificial
intelligence might soon render all human beings jobless soon. The pace at which machines are
replacing people in work places is so rapid that no one can really tell what ten years in the future
will look like in the labor section. “That is, we can’t see these jobs from here, because we can’t
yet see the machines and technologies that will make them possible” (Kelly). If it is inevitable
embracing it is the only possibility of a future in which humans benefit from AI.
Opponents of AI believe there is something special about human beings that must be preserved
at all cost. We are the most dominant and advanced animal species on the planet because we
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