The Art of Automation
This 500 words essay was chosen as the best entry submitted for the prompt “Discuss a current technological trend/issue and provide original personal insights on the impact it has on other aspects of the society (economy, business, environment, psychology, etc)” as a part of the Jitheshraj Scholarship application 2017–2018.
Written by Himanshi Gupta, NIT Trichy- class of 2021.
“You are either the one that creates automation or you are getting automated.” -Tom Preston Werner
The machines haven’t taken over. Not yet at least. However, they are seeping their way into our lives, affecting how we live, and work and entertain ourselves. From voice-powered personal assistants like Siri and Alexa to more underlying and fundamental technologies such as behavioral algorithms, suggestive searches, and autonomously-powered self-driving vehicles boasting powerful predictive capabilities, there are several examples of automation in use today.
The concept of automation is that computer systems can be used to perform tasks that would normally require a human. These can range from speech recognition and translation into different languages, all the way to visual perception and even decision making. A true artificially intelligent system is one that can improve on past iterations, getting smarter and more aware, enhancing its capabilities and its knowledge.
Automation has affected lives both individually and globally.
To speak of the social lives of humans, in particular, automated chat-bots have distanced us from our basic virtues of social interaction. The popularity of chatbots is increasing, but they often straddle a fine line between helpful tools and clunky distractions in the customer experience. Chat-bots should be a supplement to human agents, not a replacement. But it cannot be denied that chatbots provide a great user experience and act as a factotum for all business needs.
The inception of automation was merely done so that the employees could focus on bigger things and not waste their time doing menial jobs. Automation can be positive for business by increasing productivity, reducing wage costs, increasing profit margins, and also filling labor shortages. While the computer revolution has created hundreds of thousands of new jobs, it has threatened many other jobs with obsolescence and has often caused the displacement of workers by computer-based machines. Automation threatens 69% of the jobs in India, according to a World Bank report. Such an effect on the economy would also have a major impact on the political scenario.
News organizations would soon use automated bots to sort and tag articles in real-time. We’ll see advanced bots manipulating social media and stocks simultaneously. In the sports industry, AI seeks to evolve technology in hopes of bringing automation and increased data analysis to business decisions, sponsorship activations, ticket sales, athlete training, etc.
“The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race,” Stephen Hawking told the BBC in 2014. In addition, there’s also a spiritual dimension to AI which increases the chances of theological disruption.
The truth is that, whether or not AI is out there or is actually a threat to our existence, there’s no stopping its evolution and its rise. Humans have always fixated themselves on improving lives across every spectrum, and the use of technology has become the vehicle for doing just that. Hence with the aid of AI, the next 100 years are set to pave the way for a multi-generational leap forward.
