How Will Artificial Intelligence Change Our Lives? 

By Muhan Sun and Aaron Zhao

Jobs
Healthcare
Education
Cyberthreats

We are living in an era of technology, where innumerable jobs and activities are now digitalized, with the original “human” burden passed onto the hands of AI. As we move into a future where artificial intelligence become more and more prominent in our lives, it steadily becomes more crucial to analyze the roles that they will play in society, along with their impacts on the future.

In the “The Last Humans” trilogy by Dima Zales, the protagonist Theo has an AI friend, who is capable of powering and altering the appearance of society. In the 2015 film Chappie, we see an artificial intelligence develop sentience. From Rachel in the Blade Runner to HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey, AI is a very prevalent theme in science fiction, appearing in world-wide known films and literature.

But while this all exists in the fictional realm, what happens if these advanced technology become implemented in reality? What are the consequences? Is the future an ominous one with the implementation of AI and our reliance upon it?

Jobs

It’s safe to say that plenty of jobs in the future are going to be replaced by AI. Their combination of precision, speed, as well as access to machine learning and large amounts of data makes them much more suitable for certain jobs than humans. Tedious jobs that require endless repetitions (such as factory work), as we already see in today’s food industry, where the mass-producing of smaller-scale items (like those seen in the food industry) are perfect for robots. While this does mean more efficiency and precision, and allows businesses to satisfy the ever growing demand of humanity, it also means that millions of jobs will be gone, replaced by robots.

However, this is the side that is most often manifested to the population. There is another side not everyone knows about: AI will create more jobs.

Implementing AI in these jobs could free up people currently engaged with these activities, allowing them to pursue more rewarding career paths. Even if we take a standard office job, for example, AI would be able to handle a lot of the paperwork and administrative tasks, freeing people up to focus on the other, more vital aspects of their jobs, such as the actual planning of future projects or tasks that better utilize their professional knowledge and skill. Just as people throughout history have always protested against automation by claiming that it would render them jobless, it has always been proven that automation simply opens up more jobs.

Healthcare

AI would enable us to more reliably perform medical procedures, as well as remove the source of a percentage of deaths: human error. In the US, for example, around 440 000 die due to medical errors, something that could be easily avoided with widespread implementation of AI. Just like with any other job in another field, robots are very adept at doing mundane, repetitive tasks like basic health checks and diagnosing minor illnesses. AI can also help us accelerate the development of drugs and cures, as well as leverage Big Data to help make better decisions. Healthcare could be more personalized, with AI being able to analyze our health and condition much better and more completely than any human doctor.

Education

As with all the other aspects, AI will be able to take over basic level tasks such as paperwork and grading tests, rendering the entire system much more efficient, allowing teachers to utilize their time for more tasks directly related to teaching.

The learning experience itself would also be drastically enhanced, with AI being able to provide a more immersive experience, allowing students a deeper understanding of the subjects. This could be provided with technology such as virtual reality, allowing for much more interactive learning. This type of learning could also be made extremely personalized, using data collected about the learning habits and strengths of each student to tailor lessons specifically for their needs. This would be a drastic improvement over the current system, where classes are only made to suit the majority of students, dramatically lowering the learning effectiveness for the rest. In the future, schools in the traditional sense of the word may not even exist anymore, as technology provides the resources necessary to erase the need for many students to gather together, in order to learn from a single teacher.

Cyberthreats

In our digital age where so much information is stored in virtual vaults, it is unsurprising that people would choose computers as their lethal weapon. A study at the University of Maryland proposed that a hacker attack happens every 39 seconds, totalling an average of 2244 cyberthreats a day, while IBM, a global technology company, exposed that the average cost of a data breach in America costs around 3.92 million USD (2019 report).

According to IBM:

Data breaches can cause devastating financial losses and affect an organization’s reputation for years. From lost business to regulatory fines and remediation costs, data breaches have far reaching consequences.

The question arises now; how will artificial intelligence worsen cyberthreats and compromise even more information?

Consider a future, where, through the implementation of AI in everyday objects, the internet and the real world are no longer separate from each other. Everything around us, our furniture, our possessions, can all be digitally accessed and controlled. The danger of cyberthreats now becomes even more imminent, with hacking and security breaches not only affecting data (government records, information), but also the real world and hence, our lives. This is for example briefly mentioned in the sci-fi novel “The Dark Forest” by Liu Cixin (where organizations utilize specialized programs to manipulate objects in the vicinity of a target, making for an extremely deadly and almost unstoppable assassination weapon. A society where this becomes possible is not a far off possibility, especially with smart homes gaining popularity now.

That was the pessimistic facet of this problem. The facet we should be considering is the future of cybersecurity, because it is not going to look the same. Now is when we prepare, because cyberthreats must be dealt with action, not proposition for change.

Consider this before you leave

In the next decades, even centuries to come, the likeliness of AI becoming a major part of everyone’s daily lives is great. Of course, the implications of AI reach far further than just the aspects of society listed here. In fact, it is so far reaching it would be unsurprising to see AI affect every aspect of life and utterly change functioning of our lives in the future. Ask yourself this question: will humans be able to coexist with AI, or will it enslave us under its omnipotence?

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Next week, Generation Z’s first writing contest begins! And it is also the finale of the Next Chapter series, so you can guess it must be a science-fiction writing contest….