In the Age of AI

 Blog Post #9

As Kai Fu aptly states, “AI is a set of tools that helps you maximize an objective function. And that objective function, initially, will simply be, to make more money.” This quote highlights the inherent drive behind AI development: economic gain. While the benefits of AI for productivity and cost-efficiency are clear, the implications for the workforce and societal structure warrant a closer examination.

The advent of AI and machine learning technologies has precipitated a significant shift in the labor market. Numerous jobs, especially those involving repetitive tasks and basic decision-making, are at risk of being extinct in the near future. From a business perspective, AI offers unparalleled advantages in terms of productivity and cost-savings. Machines have higher production than humans because they don’t have to stop every twenty minutes for a bathroom break or to converse with friends. However, while automation has skyrocketed companies’ capital gain, the working class is struggling. 

Widespread unemployment caused by offshoring and automation will lead to severe economic instability and social unrest, and, if not stopped, the degradation of the middle class as we know it. To prevent this, I believe that this will require an entire transformation of how and what we teach the children. It is imperative that we aptly prepare the next generation for not how it is today, but how it will be in the next 50 years.

Artificial intelligence has also propelled us into a world that for the first time ever, adapts to us. It provides us with an entirely new way of living, driving unprecedented levels of convenience, efficiency, and innovation into our daily lives.  But in order to create this personalized world, it needs to know us. Our behaviors. Our hobbies. Our religion. Our marital status. Our incomes. Our daily routines. Our insecurities, likes, wants, needs, and deepest desires; sometimes even before we know them. 

At the start, the founders of Google were very open about their animosity towards advertisements. They believed that it would “distort and disfigure the purity of any search engine.” However, facing closure of their company, they applied new machine learning algorithms to predict users' interests to their search engine, without consent. With this new algorithm, their income raised upwards of 3950% in just one year. When they went public with the company in 2004, many other companies interested in earning this revenue adopted this algorithm too. 

Our private information is out there, being collected right this minute without our knowledge or consent. This is the era of surveillance capitalism, and it will only get crazier from here. Smart appliances have even brought surveillance inside our homes. They can now collect sound and audio cues to determine your speech patterns and intonations to make inferences on your mental, or even physical health if your voice sounds a little raspier than usual. Doesn’t that sound a little invasive?

Even if a company’s AI data collection is solely for improving user experience, all it takes is one hacker. One hacker to disrupt the system and get access to all of the data collected from the company and sell it to whomever they want. The Cambridge Analytica Scandal is a prime example of why this extensive data collection is dangerous and invasive. In 2018, Mark Zuckerberg had to go before court to explain how the data of over 87 million Facebook users had been illicitly harvested by a political consulting firm based in the United Kingdom. Their intent? To target and manipulate voters in the 2016 presidential election. The perpetrator? A billionaire. This breach proves that with enough money, anyone has the power to manipulate and control the masses, directly undermining our autonomy and eroding trust in our democracy. 

All in all, AI is inevitable. Automation is inevitable. While I am scared for my generation’s future job prospects as we are about to enter a workforce that will likely be unrecognizable in five years, without innovation we would have no societal progress. I am confident that if we emphasize transparency, safety, and responsibility, we will have no issues in seeing the positive ways that artificial intelligence can impact our lives.

YouTube. (2019, December 2). In the age of ai (full documentary) | frontline. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dZ_lvDgevk