Seems like just yesterday, a cyborg was sent back in time from the year 2029 to 1984 to kill an unsuspecting waitress before she could give birth.
Of course, I'm referencing the movie 'Terminator'.
*Cue Guns n' Roses music*
You have to give credit to James Cameron for Terminator; he absolutely nailed it. He must be a time traveler or something, because here we are, just a decade away from the year 2029, and clearly we are *well* on our way of manifesting the plot of that movie.
The rise of the machines, skynet, cyborgs, and John Connor were just fantasy-land ideas, and crazy doomsday talk. Right?
Until now...
Welcome to the uncontrollable world of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
I personally believe that any intelligent, forward-thinking, creative, empathetic person would (and should) have a problem with it.
AI is rooted largely in philosophy and mathematics. Some might consider the calculator to be one of the first real technical applications of AI.
As a field of study, AI was born in the 1950's at the prestigious Dartmouth College. It's founders, Allen Newell, Herbert Simon, John McCarthy, Marvin Minsky, and Arthur Samuel, knew the impact AI could have on society, predicting that machines would one day be able to do any job a human could do.
Some people think AI is a great, and a necessary progression of technology in time, and others think the opposite. I am one of those whom think the opposite. I think it has the potential to be very dangerous.
I'm not a doomsday type. I do not fear artificial intelligence, because I do see applications where it can be helpful but, there-in lies my first issue with it.
The way I see it, AI has the potential to make important breakthroughs and have major impacts on the problems society faces.
The big ones such as: pollution, hunger, disease, poverty, politics, etc.
But instead, where are we seeing it? In corporations, as a means to increase profit (and productivity) by eliminating the humans they otherwise would have to pay.
I get it. I fully understand why companies want to implement AI and machine learning technologies. I do.
But at what cost? What are the implications to society? Will it help us, or eventually hurt us? Can we control it once it's unleashed?
Not to mention, the application of AI and machine learning for replacing personal relationships, (i.e., robot girlfriends), which I also (obviously) have a problem with too.
When it comes to jobs losses to AI, nearly all of the recent literature, puts the AI job loss figure in the 40th+ percentile range.
Yes, in the next decade, 40% of ALL jobs will be eliminated, or largely affected, by AI.
And the go-to argument is always -- There will be "new" jobs requiring new skills so there's no need to worry. It will just even itself out.