The future of AI in 100 years…?

Dixie
Dixie
Sep 6, 2018 · 3 min read

As someone first really learning about AI, I find it hard to imagine the possibilities for AI beyond the ideas and applications I have heard or read from other sources. When I think about my hopes for AI, I first imagine its applications in the healthcare industry since those are issues that have personally impacted my family over the last year. I have a family member with multiple, rare health issues. As a result, she has many different doctors from different disciplines. She has to take many medications which in turn cause more health issues. As more health data becomes available for processing, I believe that in the near future AI will be able to identify links between issues and solve problems that an individual, or even a team of doctors, are not currently able to solve.

I also imagine a world where AI has helped level the playing field for all humans. Currently, people around the world have varying levels of access to information, and access is only part of the problem. Disparity in education and literacy rates around the world also prevent people from being able to understand and use information. In the future, an AI assistant could not only help provide personalized education (which is already being worked on), but help tailor information to individuals in a way that will help them better understand and apply it to further their lives.

Additionally, I hope that AI will help facilitate communication and understanding among people. As discussed in class, perhaps there will be the potential for AI to help explain the background and circumstances of other individuals so that we can better under empathise and understand the perspectives of others. Expanding on that, if AI applications are able to understand our goals and motivations, perhaps it can help us to negotiate mutually beneficial solutions in times of disagreement, limiting the impact that our emotions have in tense situations. If two world leaders each have different goals and need to negotiate a compromise, perhaps AI would be able to identify the best possible solution for both parties. Additionally, many people do not realize that our memories are not accurate representations of the past, or even how we felt about past events. An AI solution that could help us more accurately remember and interpret events may be able to help improve our communication with others, and even change how we experience things in our lives going forward.

There are, of course, many potential barriers and concerns that will need to be addressed. First humans need to trust these AI applications. This gets back to the human roles that will be important in AI, especially the “explainer” role, which were discussed in this Harvard Business Review article. Along the same lines as trust being an important factor, we will also need to be confident that our data and information is being used and shared in a secure manner. If we are supposed to trust the recommendations of AI applications, we need to be sure that they have not been breached by other people or entities.

Another concern I have is that while I hope that AI can help level the playing field for disadvantaged communities, I wonder if it will actually increase digital and socioeconomic divides in our society. If AI applications are only/first accessible to more advantaged members of our society, this has the potential to exacerbate the issues. Our government has also shown an inability for laws and policy to keep pace with technology, and I am concerned that this may only get worse in the future. But perhaps AI can help us identify the solutions to these problems? This will depend on the people working on these AI solutions. If these solutions are developed by more advantaged individuals in our society, how do we ensure inherent biases won’t be built in that make these problems even worse?