ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE - To Escape or Embrace?

To balance the equation between human and artificial intelligence, it’s crucial that existing democratic processes, not commercial interests, determine the optimizations set in the use of AI.

Take 10 seconds and look around, you are surrounded by artificial intelligence. It is everywhere. Right from the screen you are reading this on to Siri available on a tap on your iPhone uses some form of Artificial Intelligence to function.

While Hollywood movies and science fiction picture a scary sight of AI as human-like robots beyond human control that take over the world, the current evolution of AI technologies hasn't reached that risky stage yet.

Yes, Robots are taking over workforces everywhere. ATMs long ago replaced a chain of people involved in the currency withdrawing process. Drive-throughs, parking tickets, renting movies replaced by the push of a button before we realized their presence. Many jobs have been replaced already by artificial intelligence.

The recent and prevalent technology of "robo journalism" where a newspaper or online story is "written" by a machine rather than a human journalist is becoming increasingly popular.

How much of a journalist's workload can really be automated using AI tools? And are we placing jobs ultimately at risk? The use of AI systems isn't foolproof and there are evident risks attached. There have been instances when a newspaper published a report about a 6.8 magnitude quake off the coast of California - it was actually a record of a 1925 earthquake that had been published by the USGS in error and another where an Earthquake alarm sounded - 92 years late.

Although more advanced tools are in the works, there's a long way before artificial intelligence will be in a position to completely replace the power of human capacity and judgement and mimic the exact qualities of a human brain. The tools of artificial intelligence might be much faster in speed and productivity but it's vulnerability to be manipulated for commercial gains still doesn't put it in a very neutrally confident position.

Therefore, currently and in the near future automation increasingly will act like just another tool in the journalist's toolbox - a potential "prosthetic arm" for reporters who, in future, might routinely script algorithms to help source stories or produce content, transcription of interviews and identification of unusual trends in public data.

The best answer I think is to make friends with this phenomenon of Artificial intelligence. Put it to use for automating repetitive learning and discovery through data, improving products with AI capabilities, much like Siri for Apple products, analyzing more and deeper data using neural networks that have many hidden layers and achieving incredible accuracy though deep neural networks which keep getting more accurate the more we use them.

It cannot be denied that artificial intelligence is the future of the world and we cannot escape from it. Those who know how to program the technology, operate the robots and work with artificial intelligence - the computer programs, algorithms, etc. - will be the people remaining in their jobs. Maybe it's time to start learning artificial intelligence because the ones choosing strictly to rely on skills and who do not focus on automation, artificial intelligence and computerized memory will be left behind. The idea is to let the robots work among us and not in our place. If you don't focus on learning the new technology and embracing it, you will be replaced by it.

As the use of artificial intelligence permeates every major industry from healthcare to transportation, education, finance and insurance, we are fast heading towards the fourth industrial revolution. The McKinsey Global Institute says that AI is contributing to a transformation of society “happening ten times faster and at 300 times the scale or at roughly 3,000 times the impact” of the Industrial Revolution. AI has evolved to provide many specific benefits in every industry. McKinsey says self-driving cars could reduce traffic deaths by 90 percent.

To balance the equation between human and artificial intelligence, it’s crucial that existing democratic processes, not commercial interests, determine the optimizations set in the use of AI. And it is equally important to place the governance of these systems within our human, social framework and subordinating them to human needs, desires, and rights.

To ensure human control over AI in the long run, it is useful to treat the governance of AI as a question of optimizations and by setting what we really want from this system based on the preface of human interest and not commercial gains.