ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
“I don’t know why more people aren’t talking about it.”
—Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft and philanthropist.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a machine learning system that will eventually be capable of thought or behavior based on natural processes including vision, language processing, reasoning and learning.AI incorporates research from computer science, psychology, mathematics, linguistics and neuroscience and is supported by large data sets and modern distributed computing platforms to develop problem-solving applications that supplant or augment human intelligence.
Ray Kurzweil, the head of AI for Google, says that AI will eclipse human intelligence by 2029. He predicts that before 2050 AI will be a billion times more capable than human intelligence.
In July of 2017, China announced its ambition to become the world leader in AI. The United States and China are currently considered the leaders in this space. Vladimir Putin says, “Whoever becomes the leader in this sphere will become the ruler of the world.” Putin believes that future wars will be fought with drones. “When one party’s drones are destroyed by the drones of another, it will have no choice but to surrender.” Putin says.
Many are expressing concern that AI will transform the face of warfare. AI can be used to develop cyber weapons like drone swarms (fleets of drones with a shared “brain”) that can be used for attacking opponents. Both the United States and China are currently working on this technology.
In 2017, 116 technology leaders signed a letter calling on the United Nations for regulations on how AI weapons are developed and a ban on autonomous weapons known as “killer robots.” The group stated that the introduction of autonomous technology would be tantamount to a “third revolution in warfare” following the development of gunpowder and nuclear weapons.
Al also has huge implications for employment. With innovations like self-driving vehicles and stores without clerks or cashiers just around the corner, we are rapidly moving into what could be an era of mass unemployment and with it, an increased likelihood of social unrest. As a result, some are proposing a universal basic income plan which would give every American adult as much as one thousand dollars a month to guarantee them a minimum standard of living while they retrain themselves for new kinds of work.
At the same time, AI is also certain to yield incredible, even unimaginable benefits in all areas of human endeavor. Ray Kurzweil has predicted that by the 2040s, nanotechnology will be incorporated into many of our internal organs and we will have nanobots travelling through our bloodstream curing all or most of our diseases.
AI is certain to have a profound impact on your life.
The more you know about AI, the better. It will radically change the world we live in and create unprecedented opportunities and challenges. What most people don't realize, is that this is going to happen over the next twenty to thirty years.
