HOW ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE WILL CHANGE OUR LIVES (IT ALREADY HAS)
Artificial intelligence is the stuff of nightmares. Or so many people believe. In 2017, shortly before his death, the celebrated British physicist Stephen Hawking warned that the development of artificial intelligence could be “the worst event in human history,” noting that, without proper safeguards, “we could conceivably be destroyed by it.” This same year, billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk, the man behind the Tesla electric auto company, SpaceX, and PayPal, warned, “With artificial intelligence, we are summoning the demon.”
Mankind’s fear of intelligent machines traces its history at least as far back as 1818 and the publication of Frankenstein by Mary Shelley. This seminal tale of a scientist who imbues dead tissue with life only to be killed by his creation became the template for every “technology run amok” story for the next two centuries. In 1968, science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke and director Stanley Kubrick introduced us to HAL 9000, the soft-spoken, ultimately homicidal A.I. in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Currently, HBO’s original series Westworld vividly depicts the lethal chaos that ensues when robots created for human amusement decide they will no longer live as slaves.
As essential as “evil A.I.” is to science fiction, the popular depiction of artificial intelligence as something dangerous and malevolent does the field a serious disservice. After all, the scientists, engineers, and entrepreneurs working to develop artificial intelligence certainly aren’t doing so to fulfill some twisted doomsday fantasy, but because they see this technology as a means to better the human condition. For example, imagine if a computer could:
Review a patient’s medical tests and instantly produce an accurate diagnosis?
Serve as “eyes” for the blind and vision-impaired?
Act as a personal therapist, demonstrating all the emotional intelligence of a trained psychologist?
Accurately translate nuance and meaning between multiple languages in real time?
Provide expert legal advice in seconds?
Serve as a digital personal assistant, doing everything from booking theater
