What Others Say About
Emerging Technology
By Samniang Saenram
SMITHSONIAN.COM DIGITAL TREND
What will our society look like when Artificial
Intelligence is everywhere How AI will change your world in 2019, for better
or worse
Researchers will be using Artificial Intelligence (AI)
to read the signals from neurons on their way to
the brain, hacking the nerve pathways to restore
mobility to paraplegics and patients suffering
from locked-in syndrome, in which they are
paralyzed but remain conscious. By 2065, AI has
revolutionized the modification of our genomes.
Scientists can edit human DNA the way an editor
corrects a bad manuscript, snipping out the
inferior sections and replacing them with strong,
beneficial genes. Only a super intelligent system
could map the phenomenally complex interplay
of gene mutations that gives rise to a genius
pianist or a star second baseman. There may
well be another Supreme Court case on whether
“designer athletes” should be allowed to compete
in the Olympics against mere mortals.
Imagine that, in 2065, AI’s help run nation-
states. Countries that have adopted AI-assisted
Governments are thriving. Nigeria and Malaysia
let AI’s vote on behalf of their owners, and they’ve
seen corruption and mismanagement wither away.
In just a few years, citizens have grown to trust AI’s
to advise their leaders on the best path for the
economy, the right number of soldiers to defend
them. Treaties are negotiated by AI’s trained on
diplomatic data sets. In the last decade, artificial intelligence has gone
from a science-fiction dream to a critical part of
our everyday lives. We use AI systems to interact
with our phones and speakers through voice
assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Google; cars made
by Tesla interpret and analyse their surroundings
to intelligently drive themselves; Amazon monitors
our browsing habits and then serves up products
it thinks we’d like to buy; and even Google decides
what results to give us based on our search
activity. Artificially intelligent algorithms are here,
and they’ve already changed our lives — for better
or worse. But this is only the beginning, and one
day we’ll look back at AI in 2018 and laugh about
how primitive it was. Because in the future, AI is
going to change everything. But, do we want it to?
AI systems are already primed to take over
thousands, if not millions of jobs. Any job that
consists of a human taking down information from
other humans and inputting it into a system is
likely to go obsolete. So cashiers, receptionists,
telemarketers, and bank tellers are all on their way
out. As self-driving cars, self-operating drones, and
other conveyors from A-to-B get more complex,
we’ll also lose jobs like truck drivers, postal
workers, courier services, and even pizza delivery.
Factories are also becoming fully automated, so
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