This piece was written in November 2019 for The 20th Lions International Youth Exchange Scholarship Essay Competition. Also did a video presentation on the topic. Overall 2nd runner up amongst 130 contestants.
To say that artificial intelligence (AI) is the ‘next big thing’ of our generation would be an understatement. As our reliance on AI grows with our need of technology innovation, caveats of this technology exceeding our mental capability is no longer exclusive to science fiction. Whenever a powerful new invention emerges, controversy follows: first, it was atomic bombs, then nuclear energy; now comes artificial intelligence. Is AI a blessing or a curse?
There are two types of AI, namely narrow AI and general AI. Narrow AI focuses specifically on machine learning, which is to teach a program on identifying entities through parameters and patterns from data. It has been developing exponentially in recent years, which allows everyone to experience its full potential virtually everywhere, from Siri to facial recognition. It only works on demand and could solely take in what it was taught to comprehend on execution. General AI, however, is the kind of AI that appears in science fiction, the kind that people instantly think of when talking about futuristic technology, like the terminator from The Terminator Series and Ava the robot from the film Ex Machina. It is self-regulating and could work without supervision, all without the commands from humans. It is even possible for these AIs to develop a conscience, to comprehend emotions and to have their minds grow with time.
AI affects every aspect of our lives, and its impacts ripple and snowball to a global scale. 20 years ago, when the Internet was the game-changer, people would not have believed in the existence of virtual voice assistants, nor the possibility of hiring a taxi on your phone. With AI, our lives have become much easier. In this brave new world, the United States and China have funded billions of financing to technology companies in AI development. One notable use of AI is in national security, like China’s national surveillance and facial recognition technology. This includes the all-seeing security camera plan, which is extremely helpful in catching fugitives and national entry. However, the wide use of this new, unfamiliar technology sparks debate among society: some people began to question the security of our data being shared to massive corporations like Facebook, while others fear that AI itself would turn into something larger than life.
We have grown dependent on technology. But before we fly too close to the sun, will artificial intelligence lead to the existential crisis of humanity, or even annihilation? Many distinguished figures in the tech industry have openly talked about their views on the development of AI and where it may lead. They can be divided into pessimists, sceptics and optimists. Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla, called AI ‘humanity’s biggest existential threat’ and compared it to ‘summoning the demon’. Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, thinks that the future of AI is both promising and dangerous, which can possibly be used as a weapon in war. Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai regards AI as ‘one of the most important things humanity is working on’, even more profound than necessities like fire and electricity.
The expanding scope of AI application has been propitious but scary, people started to worry about getting ‘laid-off’ and replaced by automations. As AI and machinery have a higher productivity and lower cost of labour, it is a no-brainer for companies to switch the easy but demanding jobs from human labour to AI. According to Oxford academics, from factory workers to accounting clerks, 47% of jobs in the current industries are at risk of being replaced by AI in the next few decades. First they take over our cashiers and waiters, then they may take over the world. What’s more, AI might actually catalyst the doomsday of human beings: what happened in science fiction may have actually propesized our future. Some believe that AI is the doomsday, the bringer of the apocalypse, when robots become self-aware they will begin to wipe out the entire human race and become the next masters of Earth; while some believe that AI is going to be weaponized by countries to fight against each other, just like nuclear energy. Although these are all just theories and speculation, we cannot deny the likelihood of AI ‘going rogue’.
The root of the crisis comes from the AI control problem, how we prevent AI from overpowering humans. Mr Sundar Pichai compared the situation of AI with fire: fire kills people, but it is one of our necessities. ‘We have learned to harness fire for the benefits of humanity but we had to overcome its downsides too.’ We have tamed fire and made use of nuclear energy, we can implement this with AI too. With a consistently regulated capability control, we can use the same skills we created AI to control them. Computer scientists should always have this in mind, make sure AIs focus on utilizing human needs and have a kill switch for all AI. Let their purpose solely be on assisting us and nothing more. Science fiction writer Issac Asimov proposed The Three Laws of Robotics, which has never been more relevant than it was 70 years ago when it was written. It is an ethic code between robots and humans, which restricts AI from rebelling against the system without limiting the development of technology. Although it is only a fictional framework, global organizations like the United Nations could use a similar approach with restricting the capability of AI, for the greater good of humans and prevent disastrous outcomes from ever happening.
Instead of worrying about AI as a potential threat, the world should use it as our chance to fight against other more significant global social issues. Take climate change as an example: this is a real and urgent threat to our ecosystem and we should do our best to build a sustainable, better future for generations to come. People have managed to utilize nuclear energy as an electricity source for its primary purpose instead of a weapon; why can’t we do the same with AI? We can use AI to strengthen climate predictions, decarbonise industrial factories and help in Earth science and biodiversity. AI can provide a better insight about climate change by performing complex simulations of climate modeling. These cases of applying AI in global issues can make a positive impact on our planet. If we all have a general understanding of knowing the good AI can do and make plenty of use, there is nothing to fear.
The fate of AI and whether it is our friend or foe still lies under our control, and it is our mission to set a sturdy foundation for the years to come. We are at a crossroads on our future of AI: with such a giant impact on our lives, we need to open the conversation to all people, not just to the privileged in the society. With a wider conversation, the world may finally come to embrace the good AI has brought upon us, and share different opinions on where this path should lead us to. The future is in our hands, it is us to decide if AI is for better or for worse.