Top Advantages and Risks of Artificial Intelligence (AI)
The term Artificial Intelligence was invented by Johan McCarthy in 1950. Artificial Intelligence is the ability of a computer program to think and learn. Many science fiction movies portray AI as a robot that has human-like characteristics, but in reality, everything can be considered as AI if it involves a program that can perform a task that simulates human intelligence.
Self-driving cars, digital assistants such as Amazon Alexa and Apple Siri, or Google Home are some of the famous examples of Artificial Intelligence.
In this article, we will discuss some of the Top Advantages of AI as well as risks that are emerged with it.
Benefits of AI:
1. Working Accuracy is High:
The AI which we know today is actually weak AI (or narrow AI) still work accuracy is much higher than us humans. Humans usually make a lot of mistakes and to reduce human errors AI is really favorable.
Due to its high accuracy, in fields such as the medical field where many delicate surgeries are performed almost every day, Artificial Intelligence is really doing a great job by minimizing the risk of operational failures.
2. Have No Emotions:
Having emotions can sometimes make humans frustrated during performing a task, but AI does not have any emotions so getting angry or feeling hurt by anyone’s words is impossible.
Let’s say you or your company have software which due to some glitch stops functioning causing inconvenience to your customers. Imagine the kind of queries and tickets that will be raised by those customers. Often people will also flood the email with grievances.
Now imagine if a human on the other side is receiving the queries, who is trying to resolve them. But as hundreds of people are constantly calling him emailing with lots of complaints. At some point, that person might get frustrated, and in the heat of the moment exchange of some bad words can also happen which can cause customer dissatisfaction or even losing some customers.
However, with a system using AI, no such incidents can happen. AI can handle any amount of weird customer queries, with pre-loaded answers your chat-boat can reply to almost each and every query.
No doubt, AI is the safest and most convenient method to deal with such scenarios.
3.Fast Decision-Making Ability:
One of the best parts about AI-powered machines or technologies is that they can make data-bound decisions much faster than humans.
And not only these machines can make decisions faster but also can make unbiased decisions. Unlike humans, AI’s emotionless decisions can be more trustworthy.
For example, Chess game in windows, where you can find how fast an AI-based system can make decisions, and in hard mode, it is almost impossible to beat the system due to AI behind that game.
4.Can Work 24x7:
Humans need breaks after working for some time. Without rest, an average human can only work 1–2 hours. The human brain is made in such a way that it needs to refresh itself to again get ready for work. Without proper rest, the human brain starts to make errors.
But that is not in the case of AI. An AI machine can work 24x7 without taking a rest and even getting bored.
For instance, helpline centers use AI to answer all the queries. As helpline centers operate 24 hours and 7 days AI-based system is really beneficial for them.
Risks That Are Emerged With AI:
1.Promoting A Lazy Lifestyle:
The majority of the work can be automated through AI which is making humans lazy. These inventions are making humans addicted which can cause some serious problems for future generations.
Not only AI but in my opinion, the technology itself is making us lazy. The kind of convenience technology is providing us that imagining our lives without our favorite gadgets is the scariest thought. Let’s Face this fact that technology is making us lazy.
2.AI Can Be Programmed To Do Something Destructive:
Nowadays Artificial Intelligence is also been used in autonomous weapons. Autonomous weapons choose and capture targets without human intervention.
These AI arms use pre-defined criteria to search and eliminate people and in the wrong hands, this kind of technology can cause serious casualties.
Furthermore, an AI weapons race could unintentionally become an AI war and can result in mass casualties.
3.Becoming A Major Reason For Unemployment:
I know it’s tough but let’s face it, big companies are replacing employees with AI robots and AI machines. As AI is more reliable to do repetitive tasks and other works companies prefer robots over humans.
This will cause major trouble in the employment level. The less qualified individuals are being replaced with AI robots who are capable of doing similar tasks with much more accuracy and that also in lesser time.
A study published by The World Economic Forum (Future of Jobs 2018) suggests that by 2025 the robots will perform 52% of current job tasks.
4.Machines Are Not Creative Unlike Humans:
An AI machine performs tasks on the basis of pre-fed data. These machines are bound to perform only those tasks that they are programmed to do, it is not easy or I would say is impossible to think out of the box for these machines.
While artificial intelligence has made machines efficient in learning over time, they still can’t add that creative touch in explaining an event or while telling a story.
Conclusion:
On one side some very famous names including Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking find AI as a threat to human civilization. Elon musk openly stated that AI could be the biggest existential threat to humanity. On another side, many see it as an invention to create a better world.
A coin has both sides and so as in the case of AI. We have discussed both benefits and risks of artificial intelligence, now you decide what you feel about AI and discuss your perception in the comment section below.
