Blog Post #9

 Living in the Age of AI

Artificial intelligence is something that while we are all aware of, need to be informed of. Being a college student, I knew that artificial intelligence was around, but not nearly to the extent it is. While there are many positive aspects artificial intelligence brings us such as automation, decreasing monotonous tasks, minimized errors, and more as explained in this article by Western Governors University. These are only a few of the amazing attributes artificial intelligence consists of. As attractive as the endless possibilities may seem, we as humans need to take a giant step back in order to see the big picture and how artificial intelligence could impact us negatively. 

        

The Frontline documentary In the Age of AI has opened my eyes tremendously to not only the impact artificial intelligence can have, but already has. One aspect that I did not realize was that lots of people have already lost their jobs as a result and the standard of living has been lowered 10-15%. Many people rely on monotonous, repetitive tasked jobs and now that they are being replaced, they are not able to bring in a steady income. On top of this, the documentary explained that Americans do not have a money cushion they can rely on in order to go back to school to learn a new craft. Due to this, they are left pining for any jobs they can find or are left out of work. This mirrors the quote from the documentary that “AI is a driver for increased inequality”. Unfortunately with AI’s power in the rich’s hands, it will become a question of ethics for if AI will slow down and be used for good, or if it will continue to grow until we can not control it anymore.

In terms of privacy with artificial intelligence, everyone should be worried. Data mining is happening all around us without even realizing. The most eye-opening quote from the whole documentary was

“We thought that we were using social media, not that social media was using us.”

This is not only true, but frightening. Additionally described in the documentary is that we as people thought we could trust technology because it had always improved lives in the past. Being a communications major, I have learned all about predictive marketing and thought that it was a great tool for companies to use. I had never considered that these same tools could be used to influence real-world behavior prior to this documentary where it explained an experiment that influenced how many people went to vote for an election solely based on what showed up on their social media feed.

The bottom line after learning this information and the real possible risks involved with using artificial intelligence is that we have to take a stand to use it for good. Just as easily as good people can use it for good and improve lives, evil people can make AI a tool used for bad and ruin peoples lives.