Artificial Intelligence: Opportunities and Risks
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Artificial Intelligence: Opportunities and Risks
In recent years, there has been rapid progress in artificial intelligence, and what seemed like science fiction is coming into reality. For example, many people are now accustomed to Apple’s and Google’s virtual assistants and other assistants from tech-savvy companies. Self-driving cars have also surfaced and might become a norm in the near future. With such developments, concerns have risen about the risks associated with artificial intelligence. However, others are interested in the opportunities arising from the development of artificial intelligence. As a result, research is needed to explain the many opportunities and risks associated with artificial intelligence.
Opportunities of AI
Starting with the opportunities, artificial intelligence has brought customer support solutions to many businesses. Businesses organizations can now use integrated customer support to deal with complex customer interactions. The effect of this on the businesses include reduced wait time and quick customer response. AI is also useful in marketing where platforms like Google Analytics, Facebook, Google AdWords and Twitter among others can help in managing marketing operations. With these platforms, businesses and other organizations can now analyze various campaigns and give insight for future operations (Ransbotham, et al., 2018). Apart from marketing campaigns, business organizations can also use AI to track competitors. Organizations, as well as individuals, can also use AI to manipulate big data and obtain some insights from them.
Other sectors are also benefiting from AI. For example, AI is giving us the opportunity of using safer driverless cars where more people’s lives will be saved from the countless accidents caused by human-driven cars (Ransbotham et al., 2018). AI has also positively affected the healthcare sector and will continue to do so in the future because AI is helping with the cancer diagnosis and the identification of other conditions. According to reports in this area, AI can process large amounts of data to provide quick diagnostic information (Althaus et al., 2015).
Risks of AI
Although there are many opportunities associated with Artificial Intelligence, there also some risks that should be dealt with before AI develops further. One of the main risks is that AI is a disruptive technology and is likely to disrupt human life like the internet and other technologies (Ransbotham, et al., 2018). At the moment, the already developed smart software system like Siri seem to understand human better concerning what they do and what they want. With such abilities, there is no doubt that more smart virtual assistants and intelligence assistants will develop. Although they will bring us comfort, prosperity and time savings, these assistants might disrupt our lives and even how we interact with one another.
AI operates through the data that is fed into the system. This means that biased data and algorithms might be used to make biased decisions. This means that in the future, more cases of inequality might increase. Many people might also be convicted or judged using the wrong data, and vital government decisions might be made from wrong data (Kostkova et al., 2016). The same applies to AI in the hospital as the AI system can make a wrong diagnosis if wrong data is fed into the system.
Because of such problems, more legal actions and associated liabilities are likely to stem from the increased use of Artificial Intelligence. Another issue that is likely to surface from the increased use of AI is the privacy issue, mainly because companies are harvesting personal data en masse and feeding it to their AI systems. As more AI cameras are fitted into the public and private spaces, the AI technology will continue to invade our privacy, and companies, as well as the government, will continue using this data to make decisions from the data (Kostkova et al., 2016).
In conclusion, artificial intelligence is progressing rapidly, and many organizations are now using AI to perform various functions like customer support and other duties. The good thing with AI is that it has come with numerous opportunities like speedy and accurate medical diagnosis, smart business solutions, and driverless cars among other things. However, even with such opportunities, AI poses many risks like privacy, legal and biased information among other problems. Therefore, since AI is helpful, such issues should be dealt with before AI develops further.
Appendix
Artificial Intelligence Questionnaire: Multiple Choice Question
Artificial intelligence has developed immensely in the past few years, and it is likely to develop more in the coming years. Which of the following statements is true about artificial intelligence?
Artificial intelligence has opportunities and risks.
Artificial intelligence does not pose any risks at all.
Wrong data will corrupt data obtained from the AI systems.
Artificial intelligence will lead to privacy issues.
Artificial intelligence is not useful at all in the healthcare sector.
Businesses need artificial intelligence.
References
Althaus, D., Erhardt, J., Gloor, L., Hutter, A., & Metzinger, T. (2015). Artificial Intelligence. Opportunities and Risks. Policy Papers of the Effective Altruism Foundation, 2, 1-16.
Kostkova, P., Brewer, H., de Lusignan, S., Fottrell, E., Goldacre, B., Hart, G. & Ross, E. (2016). Who owns the data? Open data for healthcare. Frontiers in public health, 4, 7.
Ransbotham, S., Gerbert, P., Reeves, M., Kiron, D., & Spira, M. (2018). Artificial Intelligence in Business Gets Real. MIT Sloan Management Review, September, 17.