Will AI benefit humankind?

In this new coming decade, the 2020s, it is predicted that artificial intelligence (AI) will finally be felt in every field of science and technology. It is expected to supercharge the ability of computers to process data and deduce patterns beyond human cognition. AI will transform many aspects of life, even day-to-day activities. Does this mean that this coming Age of AI technology offers a vision of a brighter future or should the world be pessimistic?

Looking at the past decade, there is reason to be pessimistic. At the beginning of the past decade, social media was supposed to bring people together. Through Facebook, Instagram and Yahoo, people all over the world were suddenly able to communicate on a daily and real time bases. Grandchildren in California were suddenly visible to grandparents in the Philippines through Skype. 

Even forces for freedom like demonstrators and recent rallyists in places like Hong Kong and Morocco used the new technology to communicate instructions to each other without authorities being capable of stopping them. At the same time these new technologies became the bearer of fake news and purveyors of biased views. Pornography became more widespread giving pedophiles and sex perverts more opportunities for abusing even children. Cyber bullying has led to mental anguish and even suicides.

A decade ago, social media and smartphones took off. Back even  in 1979, the New York Times already warned ”...the encroaching gloom of pessimism has displaced  the idea of inevitable progress born in the scientific and industrial revolutions...the anxiety was fed by growing doubts about society’s ability to rein in the seemingly runaway forces of technology.” In an essay in the year end edition of the Economist it said:

“When it comes to eroding an existing democracy, rather than shoring up dictatorship, there are somewhat similar technologies on offer. Some are destructive. Social media, driven as its commercial interests are by desire to go viral offers way to inject the equivalent of computer viruses into the public’s political information processing, degrading and distorting its output through misinformation, emotional incontinence and cognitive sabotage.

Some are less obviously abhorrent. Neither scoring for some sort of social credit nor sophisticated surveillance tools are the sole preserve of authoritarian states.“

A decade ago, social media was hailed as a tool for restoring democracy. Today they are condemned for invading privacy, spreading propaganda and fake news and as a populist tool for undermining democracy. Terrorists have become effective users of social media which they use to spread propaganda, instructions to their followers worldwide and even as an online classroom for making bombs.

E-commerce and ride hailing have become very convenient; but, now they are charged with underpaying workers, exacerbating inequality by causing unemployment among salaried workers. E-commerce has led to closure of stores and malls resulting in thousands of lost jobs and concentration of the retail industry in the hands of a handful of giant firms like Amazon and Alibaba. Ride hailing companies  are being ordered to close down in several European countries and American states due to charges of alleged unfair competition.

Even worst, parents now worry that smartphones and tablets have turned their children into screen addicted zombies who hardly read books any more.

Toward the end of this decade we will see the emergence of “deep fakes.” This is the ability to manipulate voice and video to show people saying and doing things they never did. These will be impossible to distinguish from the real thing. In a recent essay in the Financial Times it said: “These [i.e. deep fakes] would threaten not only politicians and the democratic process but also businesses and private individuals. It will be hard to educate people not to take what they see and hear in the media at face value, without destroying social trust at the same time.

As AI develops, computer scientists face a growing “black box”  problem – their inability to understand how the system works and reaches its conclusions. This leads to one of the least predictable aspects of AI. When, if ever, will the technology move on from today’s increasingly capable but essentially specialised systems – which have learned to carry out a defined task such as diagnosing cancer or identifying faces – and create “artificial general intelligence (AGI)” as flexible and adaptable as the human brain?”

Despite all these pessimistic predictions, it is virtually impossible to halt technological progress. Firstly, it has made life more convenient. Communicating across the globe can be done by children, shopping for almost everything from the living room couch or kitchen is now a normal thing, and soon there will be driverless cars, online banking for the most remote village and the promises of virtual reality. AI is also beginning to help discover new drugs, diagnose disease from medical scans and help astronomers discover new planets or even, perhaps, other life forms in our galaxy.

The real source of pessimism about AI is not the technology itself; but, serious doubts that society and governments can control the excesses and abuses of these new technologies. We have to accept that we are going to be living in a tech-obsessed society which must be managed for the benefit of humankind and not the robots of the future and the handful of companies that will control AI technology. 

Creative writing classes for kids and teens

Young Writers’ Hangout on Feb. 22 with Neni Sta. Romana Cruz on “The Hero’s Journey” (1:30 pm-3 pm; stand-alone sessions) at Fully Booked BGC. For details and registration, email [email protected].

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