Should Humanity Trust AI?

The race to improve and integrate AI is well and truly on its way, with many venture capitalist firms from around the world joining global tech super powers, such as Google and Apple, when it comes to investing billions of dollars every year to improve and make AI a reality. AI technology is already helping to shape humanity in many ways, from Uber’s attempts at having driverless cars to Apple’s famous personal assistant ‘Siri’, and Amazon’s Alexa home hub and drones that deliver our Prime packages. Some might argue that it is already beating humanity at its own game, and it is certainly not beyond the realms of possibility to assume that once AI becomes so powerful, it could eventually enslave,and worse off, destroy humanity, like was depicted in the Hollywood 1984 blockbuster hit The Terminator. Therefore, it can easily be argued that with the creation of AI solutions to humanity’s inefficiencies, we must maintain a level of responsibility to ensure humanity’s survival.

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However, we don't need to worry just yet, as AI seems very far from being a day to day threat. For now, the main aim of AI creators is to establish better lifestyles for us. This includes, better modes of transport, something that Elon Musk of Tesla made a priority in 2016, when establishing the Boring Company to defeat traffic in Los Angeles, CA.

Some of the other advancements by other tech companies include; better medical care, education, leisure activities, communication and even improving the way we are processing data and gathering information. This is said to have a major impact which is due to improve in the coming years.

The philosophical question should always remain for AI, and that is, do we need to abide by ethics when it comes to the AI evolution? Surly, there is a point where such ethics are tested in a grey area when different countries become competitors as is the current race between China and the USA.

A simple example of how ethics did not play a part in the West can be drawn out of the Facebook data breach scandal and the way it was handled by collecting its members’ data to aggressively sell advertising to them across their various social media platforms. Facebook went a step further when it was eventually discovered that companies such as Cambridge Analytica were able to buy people’s data and therefore use targeted political messages to brainwash potential voters in elections. This practice led founder of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg, to issue an apology and put further scrutiny on the side-effects of AI when it comes to people’s privacy on the social media platforms.

Of course this type of invasion into privacy isn’t limited to the West, in fact, it is widely used as a technique to control public dissent in China, giving the Communist Regime’s leader, Xi, more powers than ever before as the growing middle-class of China becomes ever more reliant on technology.

This negative side of AI technology leads many people from around the world to demand that all AI technology remains under human control, and moreover, that a regulated license is agreed world-wide to prevent human destruction from ever becoming a reality due to the effects of AI. This will help to ensure that AI doesn’t get so extreme that we are one day faced with the possibility of running away T-1000 or the ‘bad cop’ from The Terminator!

T-1000 chasing a human, Image: The Terminator