The Negative Impacts Of Artificial Intelligence

The number of businesses implementing AI into their programs has risen by 270% in 4 years (Lin). This number will only continue to grow, and most of the platforms you use now have already used AI in sneaky ways, such as; Google, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat, etc. But, many people don’t know that this fact changes the way your brain is wired, and how you react to daily situations. Artificial intelligence including social media changes how the human mind functions negatively. AI wedges itself into our daily lives in the form of not only technology, but daily tasks as well, this inevitably will lead to different choices, relationships, and how we spend our time.

To emphasize this point, The Pew research center predicts, “Dependence lock-in: Reduction of individuals’ cognitive, social and survival skills Many see AI as augmenting human capacities but some predict the opposite – that people’s deepening dependence on machine-driven networks will erode their abilities to think for themselves, take action independent of automated systems and interact effectively with others”(Anderson et al.).AI causes people to no longer need to make decisions on their own, but let the computer do it for us, thus making all people think and act in a similar manner. These programs take away a person’s independence to form opinions and in doing so decrease the average intelligence. People will slowly not find the need to learn new processes or answer questions when the computer can do it for you and already knows. With this in mind, at the National Conference for emerging technology stated, “It is fact that one can not express his/her feelings in writing. Despite this, most of the female interviewers found the Internet the only way to connect interactively with the outside world. This bridges the gap between opposite-sex and consequently both male and female develop relations without knowing each other. That kind of relations some times brings misunderstanding between the Internet users and causes break-up of relations”(Rajani et al.). Chat rooms and social media are coded in a way to keep you engaged and in doing so one will begin to spend more time with online friends rather than with those in their daily lives. Without this face to face interactions, our brains will begin to forget common social cues and how to hold a conversation. This effectively makes relations ships, whether romantic or platonic, harder to achieve because both parties will not communicate as effectively. Social media uses AI to predict what you want to see and it uses this information to keep you engaged. Consequently, the international journal of computer sciences and engineering stated, “The additional time the students spend on these online networking destinations, the less time they will go through associating face to face with others. This decreases their relational abilities. They won't have the capacity to convey and mingle adequately face to face with others. The businesses are getting increasingly unsatisfied with the relational abilities of the new graduates because of this reason”(Akram et al.). Relationships are formed on the basis of interaction and one’s social skills, without this companies will not want to hire a person who cannot effectively speak with others. If our brains go without interaction for too long we become isolated, being isolated can lead to negative effects on the brain. Isolation from the outside world significantly increases one’s risk for mental illness, such as social anxiety and depression.

Some would argue that AI doesn’t change our minds in drastic ways, rather it can be a tool. AI could potentially help people in relationships by helping people work together and be more carefree. Moreover, this Atlantic article, explains an experiment, “As it turned out, this clumsy, confessional robot helped the groups perform better—by improving communication among the humans. They became more relaxed and conversational, consoling group members who stumbled and laughing together more often” (Christakis). Many companies often have new groups of people work together to produce a culminating project. Many people feel uncomfortable around new people and the robot being introduced leads to better communication leading to a more pleasing project. Whilst this is a positive in the short term, the long-term effects of this can be devastating. If one relies on a robot to be the mediator to ‘break the ice’ then how will you respond in relationships where there is no robot? How will one react when they are placed in a workgroup and everyone expects another to speak up? If we allow ourselves to depend on a robot to make us feel more comfortable we will only end up being not able to mentally handle situations without one. This would lead to a need or dependence to always have a robot around us. AI will have long-term effects, that change the way people interact with one another. As a result, an article in the Atlantic stated, “But adding artificial intelligence to our midst could be much more disruptive. Especially as machines are made to look and act like us and to insinuate themselves deeply into our lives, they may change how loving or friendly or kind we are—not just in our direct interactions with the machines in question, but in our interactions with one another”(Christakis). Allowing robots to make us act certain ways even if positive can only lead to a reliance on one, and in which case we will not be able to function in a progressive manner without one. Even if they could make us more kind as the article states, it could do the exact opposite as well, either way, it effectively takes away the freedom to have our own action and it's manipulating. The more we use the internet the more AI can accurately map our brain functions and know our triggers. Furthermore, Use of internet and its effects on society said, “they get online and start chatting with anonymous users. The excessive use of Internet isolates the user from real-world and find less time to spend with their friends and families. Excessive use of the Internet may lead to a person in depression” (Ranjani et al.). If young children or teens only communicate through the use of social media then intrapersonal relationships will be harder to make and maintain. Not having a close friendship or family ties can lead to a person feeling alone.  This lack of relationship physically rewires our brains to have a chemical imbalance causing depression.

Artificial intelligence can be a strong power but comes with many consequences that all should be aware of before becoming prone to these changes. Some argue that AI will help us communicate better, but these consequences will have long-term effects and permanently change the way we think and act. Daily tasks that use to be muscle memory will be changed in terms of our reactions to relationships and how we spend our time. Even more important things like our opinions and reasoning will be changed and obscured subconsciously. Think about how websites and social media changes one’s priorities.