The Pros And Cons Of Artificial Intelligence

In an age where technology is so advanced that robots replace humans in the workplace, it is no surprise that increasingly fewer Americans are considered full-time employees. While proponents of advancement argue that technology adds a high level job for every low level job it takes away, low class manufacturing jobs will not be the only newly-automated jobs. Due to rapid advancement, computers are projected to be one thousand times more powerful in the 2030s than computers today (McChesney and Nichols, 2016, 246). With these improvements, no human’s job is safe.

In his article “A Darker Them in Obama’s Farewell: Automation Can Divide Us” (2017), Claire Cain Miller explains how automation causes more harm than good to society, can divide the nation and leave millions of people unemployed, rather than economy prosperity. Miller mentions technology change can make minorities like immigrants, the poor, transgender, and even white people feel left behind, which drive cynicism and political polarization. Since artificial intelligence can only do fixed, low-skilled works, education will be the main solution as professional works like service, including health care and education jobs will never be lost in time. The solution for this, as the White House advocated, is through education.

Some science fiction authors have predicted horrible futures due to AI and robots taking over jobs and later humanity, but many writers like Andrew McAfee and Erik Brynjolfsson (authors of The Second Machine Age: Work, Progress, and Prosperity in a Time of Brilliant Technologies) dismiss this idea as one unlikely extreme. McAfee and Brynjolfsson describe in their book the nature of machines and manual labor as complements and how their slow delving into becoming economic substitutes as objectively good rather than negative. Businesses naturally do risk cutting automated jobs, but such a move would open an entire new field of jobs for humans to fix and build machines. In turn, businesses like RobotWorx argue that they can make more profit, increase wages for the quality of work from their skilled workers, and remain at the competitive level expected in the modern economic market (more extensive list can be found in their website here). Naturally, such statements beg the question that our economy would not crash because it would naturally adapt and shift due to the moves as it has when such inventions like the assembly line and textile mills came to invention.

Imagine a time in which almost seventy percent of students will be employed in jobs that have yet to exist(Ira Wolfe). You can stop imagining, because it is already here. Almost 47% of jobs that Americans currently hold, will most likely be replaced by automation in the next twenty years, according to Michael Osborne and Carl Frey, researchers of the effects of computerization on the workforce. Automation is now not a question of if, but a question of when. Automation is a very real and dangerous situation that the citizens of America need to start dealing with now. Before any disaster, preparations are made to help reduce the impact of the disaster. To help prevent

computer automation will create jobs and do jobs that we do not want to do and

Since the industrial revolution, automation in workplaces has steadily increased. However, with a sudden boom of technological advances, people have created machines that can perform tasks more efficiently - and arguably better - than humans. Because millennials, defined by the United States Census Bureau as the generation born between 1982 and 2000 (United States Census Bureau, 2017), either just entered into the workforce or will first be entering the workforce in the next couple years, they seem the most vulnerable to automation taking over their jobs. Mark Zuckerberg, entrepreneur and founder of Facebook, said “[the millennial] generation will have to deal with tens of millions of jobs replaced by automation like self-driving cars and trucks” (Zuckerberg, 2017). Danielle Paquette, journalist for the Washington Post, believes that no single job is safe from automation; “every job has some component a robot could theoretically handle” (Paquette 2017). Both of the previous statements create a question about how automation will affect the un- and underemployment of the millennial generation. The risk of either un- or underemployment for millennials depends largely on the type of job, as well as each a person’s degrees and other qualifications. By delving into the problem of automation in workplaces, maybe people can find a way to make the benefits of automation outweigh the consequences.

The phenomena of computers have most certainly become an indispensable part of everyday life and have inevitably revolutionized the way in which we live. Although their presence is made visible in the small everyday aspects of life, computers more often than not mark their presence in the fields of mathematics and science, where numbers become the language in storing and working with vast quantitative data and information. It can then be said that in crunching numbers and processing such vast information, computers are able to exhibit forms of knowing and understanding. Does this mean then, that due their ability to process such large amounts of data, computers are able to attain a degree of knowledge and understanding which far surpasses the human mind? While there may be numerous and varying views to this claim,

Many find it to be one of the most useful reports of the pros and cons of artificial intelligence to date. The report is well written and relays the information in a manner that is easy to understand.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a term first used by Professor John McCarthy to describe a machine that can perform an intelligent task (Wisskirchen, et al., 2017). McCarthy argued that so long as the area of intelligence can be described precisely enough for the machine to understand it, the machine can simulate the intelligence required to operate in that field (Wisskirchen, et al., 2017). The recent emergence of technologies such as good internet infrastructure, high powered computers, digitized data, and micro-computer engineering, are allowing AI to become possible (Rao, 2017). (See Appendix D) Due to the emergence of these technologies, AI is rapidly advancing, driven primarily by the private sector, because of AI’s most obvious advantage in for-profit sectors: it can replace human workers at a lower cost (Manyika, Technology, jobs, and the future of work, 2017). Artificially intelligent workers are superior to human employees in almost every regard as they do not get sick, have children, get paid, go home, or take leave, furthermore, they are more efficient, productive, cheaper, and easier to administrate (Lee, 2015). These are just some of artificial workers’ considerable advantages, and in theory, there is no human worker who will ever outperform fully developed AI (Lee, 2015). An illustration of this is Google’s DeepMind AI’s total mastery of the game of Go, demonstrated through its defeat of the world’s best players (Metz, 2016). DeepMind is able to

Robots help to advance the industry with their fabricated intelligence. The article, “Better than Human: Why Robots Will— and— Must Take Our Jobs” by Kevin Kelly, discusses how robots can “help us dream up new world that matters” (Kelly 311). Kelly strongly believes that robots will eventually rework the entire industry. Kelly states, “The rote tasks of any information-intensive job can be automated. It doesn’t matter if you are a doctor, lawyer, architect,

Flying saucers piloted by alien robots, fully intent upon extinguishing all human life, sounds like something from a black and white movie. Whether on television, in books or real life, technology encompasses the daily lives of nearly every person on the planet, and for good reason. A (Very) Brief History of Artificial Intelligence states, “Robots, and artificially created beings such as the Golem in Jewish tradition and Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, have always captured the public’s imagination, in part by playing on our fears” (Buchanan). The world now has a closer relationship with machines than ever before, none of which have physically harmed anyone while exercising free will. Several of the world’s most brilliant minds have raised a red flag on artificial intelligence by declaring a possible threat to humanity and calling on powers, such as the United Nations, to ban further military advancements in the field. The pros of AI, by far, outweigh the cons and it is time for these scholars to adhere to what they do best and leave science fiction to bestseller lists of decades gone by.

“More than 30 percent americans cite technology as the reason they are out of work, and in 2013, Oxford researchers predicted machines could take 47 percent of U.S. jobs over the next 20 years.” Developing innovations like modern robots, manmade brainpower, and machine learning are progressing at a fast pace, but yet people haven't thought about regarding their effect on work and open arrangement. While technology is improving and becoming more useful and sufficient for good services, it is also replacing large numbers of workers, and this probability challenges the regular advantages of trying to find a job where you get paid well without having that fear that you will lose it because of a robot. In an economy that only needs much more less specialists, we have to have the thought of how we can help those workers who are displaced. The effects of robotization (robots being turned into humans) improvements are now being felt all through the economy. The overall number of modern robots has expanded quickly compared to the previous couple of years. The falling costs of robots, which can work throughout the day without intrusion, influence them to cost focus with human laborers. In the administration segment, PC calculations can achieve stock exchanges a small amount of a moment, much more quicker than any human.

Advances in technology have contributed significantly to the success of the United States economy. Since the Industrial Revolution, technological advances have allowed companies to carry out tasks more efficiently, expediting production while driving down the product costs. With the increase in demand for cheaper products, so did the need for workers to overlook the machines doing the work. In recent years, a new technological system called Artificial Intelligence has emerged. Artificial Intelligence (AI), is “the theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence, such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision making, and translation between languages” (Barrat 7). Even though AI is still in its early stages of development, some companies have tried to cut costs by implementing these early forms of AI. As a result, “we get a higher gross national product owing to the impact of information technology on workers productivity” (Barrat 191). But, what happens to the job market when people are replaced by machines, and who actually benefits from the implementation of AI?

Everywhere one looks, there are references to the latest and greatest technologies: there are new phones, faster computers, or self-driving cars, just to name a few. Most reaction is positive, as everyone is excited about innovation, until it can be a potential threat to their way of life. Technological advancements in automation have developed at a scary pace for some in the workforce, as some people are getting laid off, just to be replaced by a robot. The former president Barack Obama even commented on the rapid pace of automation, saying, “The next wave of economic dislocations won't come from overseas. It will come from the relentless pace of automation that makes a lot of good, middle-class jobs obsolete” (Obama). He seems to think a lot of jobs will be lost, but just how many jobs will be taken by robots in the near future? Looking at the technologies that are currently developed, not all jobs will be replaced by robots, but some professions could face a bleak future as there still are many jobs that may be susceptible to automation. There are three different classifications of jobs: those that likely will be mostly automated, those that can be automated but will not be for moral or economic reasons, and those that cannot be taken due to the abundance of technology that would be required for them to be taken. It appears that the socioeconomic class a person will be correlated to whether or not their job becomes automated.

Computers, robotics, and automation are driving more and more of production. In turn this is leading to an enormous impact on the number and type of jobs. An Australian report released in June 2015 found that 40 per cent of the Australian workforce – or around 5 million jobs – are at high risk of being replaced by computers in the next 10-15 years. This backs up the Oxford Martin School’s 2013 study finding 47 per cent of jobs in the United States are at risk of being automated using artificial intelligence. We need to move urgently from a discussion about protecting the jobs of today, to creating the jobs of the future.1