Artificial Intelligence: A Paradox
John McCarthy coined the term “Artificial Intelligence” in 1955, throwing light on the question, “Can a machine think?” The term can be simply defined as intelligence displayed by machines, especially computer systems to make human effort much easier. Artificial intelligence has revolutionized the world today with smart robots, self-driving cars and body trackers. Though the revolution started with automating basic human tasks such as doing calculations with a calculator or solving logistic problems with a computerized system, through the years, there has been an explosion in this field, with artificial intelligence making huge breakthroughs in medicinal diagnosis machines, energy optimization machines and manufacturing machines to name a few. A much simpler indicator of the boom of artificial intelligence is of its growing importance as a career, the subject itself is being taught in many universities today.
Artificial intelligence has come a long way over the years, let’s take a look at a few examples. Cornell University has developed an app called “eBird” based on machine learning with the objective of species conservation. The app succeeded in saving more than 22 million hours of fieldwork on observing different bird species in a given location. They also have a project that is committed to discovering new materials to capture solar energy. The National Science Foundation is using machine learning to create a 3D living model of the entire planet called EarthCube that comprises of vast data that scientists could use to suggest measures to avoid catastrophic events or at least plan ahead for them. Some of the less serious but still important innovations of artificial intelligence include Skype’s universal translator, Facebook’s smarter newsfeed and a start-up company that is developing a personal photo archivist software.
Though artificial intelligence is developing rapidly, there are numerous critics including Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk that have warned humanity of the drastic impacts of artificial intelligence. Some people fear that if machines or robots can think and feel like humans do, humanity can be wiped out with an infestation of these super-intelligent machines. Others make simpler arguments such as unemployment rates going up, a sense of laziness rising or human capabilities going to waste if machines replace humans to do work. On the other hand, famous authors such as Douglas Hofstadter, Noam Chomsky and Hubert Dreyfus ask a rather deep-rooted question, “What exactly is artificial intelligence?” Is it just building smart machines that play around with data analytics and predict future trends or is it the idea of cloning a human mind with all its cognitive and emotional capabilities into a machine so that it can think and feel like a human? Many other researchers including Stuart J. Russell and Charlie Ortiz claim that there is a long way to go before we need to worry about the super-intelligent robots taking over the world, since that kind of technology is still nowhere close to being made.
My personal view on artificial intelligence is a simple one. As the saying goes, too much of anything, even good, is bad; before artificial intelligence reaches the tipping point, we must make the most of it. Stuart J. Russell made an analogy I rather like, he said artificial intelligence is like nuclear fusion research, to get unlimited energy the question in hand is how to contain the fusion reaction. In the same way, if we want unlimited intelligence, we need to figure out how to align computers or machines with human needs. We, as humans, need to first understand what we need and what it is that we want and how we can utilize artificial intelligence to the maximum without destroying the earth and all that comes with it. But as incidents of risk caused by artificial intelligence have increased, it is important to understand the full extent of destruction that might be caused once the tipping point is reached.