OPINION: Artificial Intelligence Still Poses More Potential Issues than Benefits

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In the past decade, there have been a lot of technological advances in society. However, with all these advances, conversation about the cost and damages done by these same advances has been brewing. In this conversation, Artificial Intelligence (AI) takes a special spot, as it is the idea that humans and robots can find a meeting point. The goal behind Artificial Intelligence is that technology will be present in forms that will complete tasks that humans usually do and will be all computer-controlled. 

Though the topic sparks an interesting conversation among people because it takes two of the most evolving things on earth and puts them side by side to connect. Whilst a lot of people believe Artificial Intelligence will do more good to society, there is more proof regarding the idea that AI will do more damage. 

One of the biggest concerns related to Artificial Intelligence and its growth is the lack of jobs. Whilst the growth of Artificial Intelligence will make it a lot easier for humans to continue with their lives and will solve a lot of problems that require accuracy related to the job industry, there will also be a huge underlying issue. The issue is that there will be a significant lack of humans doing any work or jobs, resulting in a society where Artificial Intelligence runs the world.

 According to Builtin, “While it’s true that Al will create jobs, an unspecified number of which remain undefined, many will be inaccessible to less educationally advanced members of the displaced workforce.” This means that jobs which are often done by teens or people who didn’t have access to long term career plans with college, will instead be replaced by Al. 

Another huge concern when it comes down to AI is autonomous weapons. This means that if a robot is programmed to do something against its original code, or programmed to be physically aggressive, it can be extremely violent. According to Forbes, “it might even be plausible to expect that the nuclear arms race will be replaced with a global autonomous weapons race.” Along with this, the other concern is that the autonomous weapons will catch a mind of their own, and it will be extremely dangerous. Essentially, the idea is that, when Artificial Intelligence starts showing intense growth and normalization, whoever has the most power over the industry will have the most power in the world. 

But with all these concerns, there is also the most personal concern for everyone when it pertains to Artificial Intelligence, and that’s the right to privacy. Even without AI, it is incredibly possible to track someone’s every move and see where they are at all times of the day. Cameras and facial recognition already exist, but with Artificial Intelligence, this system will become even faster. Artificial Intelligence will also take a lot of the information we have from our online databases and be able to manipulate us with these piles of information. 

 Forbes also states that “By spreading propaganda to individuals identified through algorithms and personal data, AI can target them and spread whatever information they like, in whatever format that they will find most convincing — fact or fiction.” This would be another violation of privacy because it would take personal information from people and turn it into a faster way of manipulating people through data comparison. 

With all these dangers rising with Artificial Intelligence, AI still has some huge advances and benefits. Some positives include that AI has no downtimes. Once it starts running, it will be able to work all the time if programmed correctly. It will also make it easier for humans to do jobs that require precision and perfection, and help many different job fields that require data analysis to benefit human health and human life. However, with all these different benefits there are still the more obvious and prominent issues related to Artificial Intelligence that need to be considered before completely diving into the new and growing industry that will affect multitudes of generations, if not approached with caution.