Essay Sample on Artificial Intelligence: The Cause of Greatness, or Destruction

Will Artificial Intelligence be that which will thrust man into the next era, or back to the stone age. AI is the ability for a machine to think and act with true intelligence allowing it to not just do the jobs we don't want to do, but to think like we do and learn like we do, without the limits of age. Artificial Intelligence has been a topic since the 20th century and tests have even been developed solely for the purpose of what happens when an AI gets so good it's indistinguishable from humans, and half a century later we saw the first ever AI to pass the test but not without controversy. Whether people think that we’ve stepped too far into the domain of god and are dooming ourselves, whether they believe the AI, portraying a teenage foreigner with English as his second language, was even enough to be credited, or if they believe this marks the first step in what will be our greatest creation yet. The Creation of AI will do more good for the human race than harm; it can be used to do strenuous tasks, repetitive tasks, and advance our understanding and mastery of the way things work.

Artificial intelligence, the ability for a machine to learn like a human, to continuously grow smarter and learn more things. Artificial intelligence has been a thing for a long time so much so that tests were made 70 years ago to test for a machine's capability to trick humans into thinking they're a human as well. Something so grand can’t go without thought of what will happen if it goes wrong though, even moves like the terminator touched upon AI take over but it still isn’t a huge topic to most people, but with advancements getting ever closer to our first real AI, this topic will grow more controversy.

After about 65 years, a computer passes the Turing test. The Turing Test, developed in 1950, 65 years later in 2014, was finally beaten by a program called Eugene. The Turing Test was initially developed by a computer scientist by the name Alan Turing to find out whether or not a human was actually a machine.  In his paper, Turing proposed a twist on what is called "The Imitation Game." where there are three rooms, each room connected via a screen and keyboard, one containing an AI, the other a human, and the last containing a  human judge. The AI tries to convince the judge that it is human, and the judge tries to disseminate which is which. However in 2014 when it was finally beaten, it wasn’t without controversy; ““In 2014 [a] computer programmer finally beat the Turing Test and [claimed] the loebner Prize… with a chatbot [that] was programmed to simulate a fictional teenage Ukrainian boy named Eugene Goostman, who wasn’t a native speaker”, Eugene managed to get one third of the judges to believe he was the human winning the test.”(Turing Test) When a chatbot simulating a Ukrainian boy with english as its second language won, many believed it didn’t deserve the award because of its technicalities, but even if it doesn’t it proves just how close we have come over the last 65 years only to get a chatbox that only persuaded one judge.

The best AI is currently built based off of human Intelligence. So far most attempts at AI have not been successful, however some scientists are calling for a link between neurobiology and computer science to make a new kind of AI, one based on Human Intelligence and not computer Intelligence. Researchers and computer scientists in Israel are using neurobiology to make an AI and not machine learning because the disadvantages of the human brain might just be the key to true AI;  ”The idea of efficient deep learning algorithms based on the very slow brain's dynamics offers an opportunity to implement a new class of advanced artificial intelligence based on fast computers. It calls for the reinitiation of the bridge from neurobiology to Artificial Intelligence and, as the research group concludes, "Insights of fundamental principles of our brain have to be once again at the center of future artificial intelligence".”(The brain inspires a new type of artificial intelligence.) So with new advancements it could lead to AI based on human intelligence.

AI can be used to do the tasks that no one wants to do but is still helpful no matter how simple or small or complex it is. Cleaning your email of spam, Screwing in screws all day on a manufacturing line, Cashers and more; all either strenuous, repetitive, unliked occupations all of which could be replaced by machines even if it doesn’t have AI like for repetitive jobs. ;”if an email service [ran] by computers was instructed to delete all spam emails, the machine would use algorithms to find and identify all emails that meet the definition of “spam,” and then delete them”. They also explain that “many modern devices with artificial intelligence acquire new information in a process called deep learning, which utilizes complex nets of connections called neural networks designed to mimic the layout of neurons in the human brain.”(Artificial Intelligence) But there are differences between artificial intelligence and the takeover of manual jobs on things like industrial lines. Artificial intelligence will be able to learn after every event and can learn to distinguish between spam messages and real messages however a AI would not be used for industrial lines, the machines that are taking over those jobs are coded with one job to do exactly what they do and nothing more meaning there nothing more than a program with hardware whereas an AI would be much more than that capable of growing and learning. One of the biggest arguments against AI isn’t AI take over, but the taking of jobs from the working class, however as previously stated AI has nothing to do with that leading to the actual rebuttal against AI, Artificial intelligence taking over the world.

AI will be the end of the world as we know it; “AI is far more dangerous than nukes.”("7 Dangerous Risks of Artificial Intelligence") This article goes on to mention many reasons as to why AI is dangerous, the most prominent being AI deming humans inferior or something happening and them taking over and Machine takeover of the working classes jobs. Thomas goes on to state that Martin Ford says, “If you’re flipping burgers at McDonald’s and more automation comes in, is one of these new jobs going to be a good match for you?” Ford said. “Or is it likely that the new job requires lots of education or training or maybe even intrinsic talents — really strong interpersonal skills or creativity — that you might not have? Because those are the things that, at least so far, computers are not very good at.”(Thomas, Mike) as well as ”before long at least 70 percent of their tasks — ranging from retail sales and market analysis to hospitality and warehouse labor — will be done using AI”.(Thomas, Mike) Though Flipping burgers and taking orders aren't as repetitive as some manufacturing lines they still could be done and are being done with simple machines and not AI, there is no need for a machine to learn while doing these jobs, the events that happen, the orders taken, and the food made will always be based off of the menu. Autonomous weaponry, the ability to send drones into the war zone and not human lives or have missiles that track their targets themselves, all current technology we have now that again run off of simple machine code, though that is not to say that they are without need of AI; ”autonomous weapons that operate without human oversight,  unease abounds on a number of fronts. And we’re still in the very early stages.”(Thomas, Mike) There are many examples of machines learning to clear obstacle courses and discern from ally and enemies and there is no doubt that if and when these machines can appropriately learn these things that most will try to use them for war however it will be decades before this can be done and even then these machines wont use AI but a kind of machine learning that is used like AI but they will never have true sentient intelligence as such are no more of a threat that current man used weapons.

Automation of strenuous and repetitive tasks, and an advancement in our understanding and mastery of the way things work are all possible, with Artificial Intelligence. 65 years to pass a test on a technicality, reestablishment of the bridge to neurobiology, use on highly intelligent simplistic tasks, and based on human intelligence, AI will be the next greatest invention of mankind, and as it continues down this path, it will work with humans and not against them. Whether AI is the thing that thrusts us into a new era or is the cause of our destruction, AI though isn’t a big topic now, will soon grow to be one of the most influential creations of our species.