ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE - A BOON OR A BANE ? | LUMEN
This “ enlightening ” poem took me roughly 5 seconds to generate , as my prompt was a terse “ write a short poem in first person about ChatGPT with an audience of LUMEN .” If it is this convenient to write a poem with ChatGPT , an Artificial Intelligence ( AI ) chatbot developed by OpenAI , imagine a whole new world of things we can do with this ! In this article , we will discuss AI , its uses and impacts on society and our newfound friend ( or foe ?) - ChatGPT . We may have tried out ChatGPT such as creating a poem for this story , but what really is ChatGPT and AI ? Where did AI originate from ?
AI is a field that combines computer science and robust datasets to mimic the problem-solving and decision-making capabilities of the human mind . It encompasses sub-fields of machine learning and deep learning , which comprises AI algorithms that seek to create expert systems to make predictions or classifications based on input data . AI has successfully enabled effective voice and image recognition and the ability to generate synthetic imagery and speech .
The term “ AI ” was coined by American computer scientist John McCarthy in 1956 . The development of AI increased tremendously after his first workshop for AI technologies that same year . While the AI of our age is mostly seen in appliances such as robot vacuum cleaners and virtual assistants such as Siri , the AI of that time revolved around huge computers as tall as an average man . Notable milestones in its development were in 1997 when the Supercomputer “ Deep Blue ” won a chess game with the then-world champion of chess Garry Kasparov . Imagine spending decades of your life honing your skills in chess , just to be beaten by an impersonal set of written code ! AI soon evolved from experiments to catering to the needs of consumers . The first commercially successful robot cleaner was created in 2002 . Since then , other AI devices and robots such as Google Assistant , Alexa , ChatGPT and even Google Maps have been created for a more convenient life . Gone are the days of using physical maps or street directories to travel around the city !
As digital natives of this era , it is difficult not to be surrounded by social media . Be it Instagram or Twitter , many of the social media platforms we use rely heavily on AI . When browsing through our social media networks , we always seem to keep scrolling endlessly . Why ? Because the AI that is built into the system analyses what posts we look at , and uses this data to generate similar content that we might like on our feed ! This increases the amount of time we spend on social media , which leads to more data being collected and analysed by AI , and a vicious cycle of endless scrolling continues . This leads to a whole new level of interaction humans have with technology , and getting addicted to social media is now a common societal issue . Yet , if we use social media responsibly , it can benefit the masses , such as when we use social media for awareness of medical conditions and even to raise funds with the help of AI .
The rise of misinformation during COVID has been aggravated by the in-tandem rise in AI usage
Personally , AI has become an essential part of my life that I forget its existence at times . While drafting this article on Google Docs , I became conscious of the use of AI in determining what word I was to type next . AI in Google Docs is also used whenever we make a grammatical or spelling error . Notice how sometimes the errors pointed out might be inaccurate ? AI uses the feedback we give on the imprecise corrections and uses this data to churn out better recommendations for us . Whenever I find myself procrastinating while doing work , I find myself gravitating towards YouTube . YouTube is another example that leverages AI to increase its viewership . The YouTube algorithm notices each and every video that you watch ( even if you turn off the watch history ) and uses this data to recommend similar videos to your liking . Try watching 10 videos on Chemistry , and very soon the homepage of your YouTube application or website will be flooded with videos on Atoms and almost anything under the sun on Chemistry .
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