Is Artificial Intelligence a threat or a blessing?
“Artificial intelligence,” also called “AI,” was first coined in the mid-20th century. It uses advanced algorithms and data structures to solve complex problems and combine large datasets to provide computer programs to think and learn independently (Kaplan, 2016). Hence, AI can significantly impact real-world social concerns, and it has the potential to provide solutions to various issues. This essay argues that artificial intelligence is a blessing to humanity because it is a solution to complicated medical procedures and lower costs, can make accurate disaster predictions, and assist in emergency disaster response. It also creates a new scope for employment, although it is viewed as a job killer.
Artificial intelligence has a huge impact on the research of medicine and the diagnosis of diseases. AI analyses large databases from many sources and can provide specific therapy for different patients that are very accurate (Moein, 2014). The diagnoses, that are aided by AI, are very smooth and efficient and can operate on patients without human supervision. According to an article by Emerj (2019, as cited in srgtalent, 2019), “one-third of all healthcare AI SaaS companies are focusing partly or exclusively on diagnostics — making it a major area for AI application”. Additionally, even though everyone’s DNA is unique, most medical practice today still follows a “one-size-fits-all” standard of care. A critical use for AI is creating and analyzing enormous data sets linking genomic and medical information. Clinical professionals can practice customized medicine, and more targeted medications can be developed, providing better care at a reduced cost. As can be seen, artificial intelligence has made significant changes in the medical industry.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a solution to the numerous natural disasters that strike various locations worldwide. Humanitarian intervention needs high-quality information to succeed, and AI systems are built on this foundation. As an illustration, Artificial Intelligence has been used in many disasters to aid the management of rescue activities. This is possible because it allows the coordination between the drones, sensors, and actuators to scan the area in a detailed way and processes a huge amount of data to provide correct information, supported by the landscapes, hence reducing the time that it takes to rescue victims (Imran, 2014). For instance, artificial intelligence was used in Chile for earthquake evacuation procedures and the Nepal earthquake volunteer mobilization (EKU online, 2018). Additionally, Huge corporations like Google focus on flood prevention, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions, using AI to identify high-risk locations and alert residents. Google also partnered with Harvard University to develop an AI system to predict seismic aftershocks. To build this system, researchers trained a neural network and studied more than 131,000 databases of earthquakes to find similar pattern and then, tested it against traditional methods on 30,000 occurrence sites. On a scale of 0 to 1, the traditional method, also known as the Coulomb model, scored 0.58 whereas the new AI system scored 0.84 (The Verge, 2018). AI can therefore deal with problems with great precision that would otherwise take humans a long time and be much more complicated.
Artificial intelligence is a fast-growing field, many new applications are emerging, and it needs more humans to build new system and maintain it, and for this reason, there has been a huge demand for jobs like machine learning engineers, robotics engineers, data scientists due to the emerging applications of Artificial intelligence. As AI cannot express itself emotionally, so there are more career prospects for those with high emotional intelligence. These professionals include managers, directors,, and advisers, specialists in linguistics, neuroscience, and many more. Unique human characteristics like empathy, creativity, and critical thinking, which are essential in the job, cannot be replicated by AI. Now, coming on to a more socio-economic concern, it is widely established that AI will displace humans in jobs and will create huge unemployment around the world but a World Economic study found that by 2025, artificial intelligence will actually create 97000000 jobs while 85000000 jobs will be replaced by it, so a net gain of 16 million jobs(World Economic Forum, 2020). The jobs that will be lost are mainly repetitive work, so people, who will lose their jobs, need to take training to develop new set of skills to do more important work. The corporate division will be most affected by AI and they are taking initiatives, along with governments, for massive upskilling of their employees (World Economic Forum, 2020).
In conclusion, artificial Intelligence will make humans’ lives easier. In fact, AI can solve complex problems in health, and the prevention, and aftermath of natural disasters, which will save millions of human lives. It also presents a chance for additional job creation and prompts humans to upskill themselves. Therefore, artificial intelligence is an answer to problems in a modern and challenging world.
References:
Kaplan, J. (2016, November). Artificial Intelligence: What Everyone Needs To Know?. Oxford University Press. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/347667829_Artificial_Intelligence_What_Ever yone_Needs_to_KnowRWhat_Everyone_Needs_to_KnowR
Moein, S. (2014, January). Medical Diagnosis Using Artificial Neural Networks. Medical Information Science Reference. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/299036682_Medical_Diagnosis_Using_Artifici al_Neural_Networks
Imran, M. (2014). AIDR: artificial intelligence for disaster response. www’14 companion. https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/2567948.2577034
EKU Online. (2018, November 27). Using Artificial Intelligence for Emergency Management. https://safetymanagement.eku.edu/blog/the-benefits-challenges-of-using-artificial-intellig ence-for-emergency-management/
Vincent, J. (2018, August 30). Google and Harvard team up to use deep learning to predict earthquake aftershocks. The Verge. https://www.theverge.com/2018/8/30/17799356/ai-predict-earthquake-aftershocks-google -harvard
World Economic Forum. (2020, October 20). The Future of Jobs Report 2020. https://www.weforum.org/reports/the-future-of-jobs-report-2020
Faggella, D. (2019, January 31), Machine Learning in Healthcare: Expert Consensus from 50+ Executives. Emerj. https://emerj.com/ai-market-research/machine-learning-in-healthcare-executive-consensu s/
Lofts, J. (2019, October 18). How Useful is AI in Medical Research?. srgtalent. https://www.srgtalent.com/blog/how-useful-is-ai-in-medical-research