The Benefits and Risks of AI
- Understanding the Potential Benefits of AI
- Understanding the Potential Risks of AI
- How to Spot AI in the Wild
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
This chapter is from the book
AI proponents predict that this developing technology will result in a bounty of benefits. According to its most enthusiastic supporters, AI will do everything from improving productivity and enhancing creativity to curing diseases and halting or even reversing climate change. On the other hand, naysayers warn of the negative impacts of AI—lost jobs, deepfakes and media manipulation, and technology that surpasses and even replaces the human race.
Which of these AI-influenced futures is most likely? Is AI all rainbows and unicorns, or do we need to prepare for war against amoral AI-powered terminators?
The reality is that AI promises some very real benefits but also brings with it some very real risks and issues. We need to know enough about what AI is and how it works to embrace its likely benefits while guarding against its possible downsides.
Understanding the Potential Benefits of AI
You’ve no doubt seen some of the effects of AI in your everyday life. Some of what AI does will benefit you. Some might negatively impact you. Some won’t affect you at all. It all depends on what directions AI takes and, to a large degree, the things you do from day to day—the type of work you do, the entertainment you choose, and more.
Let’s start by looking at some of the potential benefits of AI, of which there are likely to be a plethora.
Automating Boring Manual Processes
One thing that AI does very well is figure out how to do repetitive work and do it quickly, without complaining or needing a break. If you do this type of work, you may find AI stepping in to do it in your place—which may or may not be a good thing.
AI can do many boring, repetitive tasks much better than humans; AI is faster and more accurate than any human being could hope to be. AI also doesn’t get bored or need to take bathroom breaks. In many ways, AI is the perfect worker for activities like proofreading documents, filing contracts, and comparing invoices. AI-based systems can also pack boxes, assemble products, and perform other manual tasks at high speed and with a low incidence of errors. Businesses will love it.
Improving Business Productivity
Speaking of businesses, since AI can do repetitive tasks faster and more accurately than human beings, it is improving efficiency and productivity across a wide range of industries. AI, once it gets going, should also be able to figure out new and better ways to do many of these tasks. It’s not just a rule follower but a reinventor of rules as it learns from what it does.
The reality is that AI is already benefiting businesses in a number of important ways. Here are some examples:
Streamlining existing processes
Devising and implementing new processes
Eliminating human errors
Improving workplace safety
Reducing the need for human labor, especially for repetitive tasks
Producing more targeted marketing campaigns
Sorting, filtering, and organizing data
Analyzing data and providing detailed insights
Improving decision making
Designing new products and services
All these functions increase productivity and reduce costs, which makes AI highly attractive to the business community.
Reducing Risk
Consider all the activities that place people at risk—working with hazardous materials, operating heavy machinery, working in harsh environments, and more. By merging AI and robotics technologies, humans may no longer need to go deep underground or to unsafe heights, defuse bombs, or change lightbulbs on tall cellular towers. Autonomous robots, powered by AI, can do the job safely and keep humans out of harm’s way.
Making More Things Available 24/7
Unlike human beings, AI systems don’t need to eat, sleep, or take breaks. That means they’re available 24/7, even on holidays. Even better, AI systems remain at peak capability and capacity over that entire period; they don’t experience “peak productivity” because they’re always working at their max.
That also means that AI-powered systems can deliver service at all hours of the day and night. Instead of closing a call center after a certain hour, an AI-powered call center is available to take customer calls every minute of every hour. This means businesses effectively never need to close, plus they can now serve customers around the globe, no matter when that might be in local time.
Personalizing the User Experience
AI will further enable the trend of mass personalization. Imagine an AI system analyzing your past browsing patterns and using that to create in real time a personal home page on your favorite shopping site, with deals created in the moment just for you. AI will know what colors you prefer, how big the type needs to be, what kind of products you’re interested in, and more, and use that information to create a totally unique and personalized shopping experience.
Enabling Better Recommendations
Adjacent to the creation of AI-powered user experiences, expect AI systems at your favorite streaming video and audio sites to make better and more personalized recommendations for you. You’re used to Amazon, Disney+, Netflix, or recommending shows based on your past viewing habits; in most instances, those recommendations are based on shared actors or genres. With AI, providers can go beyond that by analyzing a whole range of behaviors to determine seemingly unrelated shows or playlists you’re apt to like. Thanks to AI, your favorite streaming service will know what you like and dislike—maybe better than you do!
Improving Digital Assistants
The use of digital assistants has been increasing in recent years, both in the home (such as Amazon’s Alexa, Apple’s Siri, and the Google Assistant) and in businesses. To date, those assistants have not been very “smart,” typically capable only of answering basic questions and performing basic tasks on command.
Integrating advanced AI technology into these systems will make them significantly more useful. Imagine a not-too-distant version of Alexa that knows when you come home, can sense what kind of mood you’re in, and selects the proper music for your mood. Or it knows that you’re interested in a particular news story or topic and feeds you new stories as they develop.
On the business front, envision a chat assistant in the bottom corner of a website that doesn’t just provide canned answers to common questions but can actually respond to questions in real time, just like a real human support person. Customers won’t be able to tell whether they’re conversing with a human or a chatbot, which benefits both the business and its customers.
Managing Messages
If an AI-powered chatbot can interact with users in real time, why not employ personal chatbots to answer your phone calls, email messages, and texts? This is particularly appealing if you’re inundated with messages either at home or at work; let an AI assistant manage all your inboxes, respond to those messages it can, and route to you only those messages to which you need to personally respond. It will be like having your own personal assistant on your computer or phone.
Improving Healthcare
The medical field is employing AI in a number of different ways, all beneficial to patients.
Physicians benefit from AI systems that ingest relevant patient information, compare it to existing data (including patient records, lab results, and data from clinical trials), and make instant and accurate diagnoses. The AI models can also devise extremely detailed and personalized treatment plans that have more positive health outcomes for patients.
Physicians can also use AI to perform delicate procedures where even the slightest error could be life-threatening. When programmed correctly and allowed to learn over time, an AI-powered robotic surgical system can be more precise than a surgeon and virtually error-free.
(And in case you think this latter application is a futuristic dream, know that the Smart Tissue Autonomous Robot—STAR—has already performed laparoscopic surgery without any human guidance whatsoever.)
For individuals, AI technology can help people better manage their health and wellness, as well as understand physician advice and instructions. AI can also catch errors that might develop when treatment spans multiple physicians or clinics, such as multiple prescriptions that shouldn’t be taken with one another. That sort of coordination is difficult with traditional manual systems but is a snap for AI-based systems.
Enhancing Learning
AI is helping students learn more and learn faster by developing learning plans personalized to each individual. Consider the vast amounts of data available on student performance and learning styles and how AI can analyze and extract actionable insights to improve learning efficiency. Thanks to AI-based learning systems, students can learn at their own pace and focus on those areas where they need more work.
Augmenting Creativity
Today’s AI models are already capable of creating short stories, poetry, images, and songs. Many media sites are using AI to write news stories and blog posts. Fans and some artists are using AI to create new artwork. Companies are using AI to create pleasant-sounding background music for phone systems and commercials.
Going forward, AI-created art will get better—more human-like and more creative. Writers, artists, and musicians are learning how to use AI to assist them in their work, generating new ideas, exploring new styles, and developing a new type of creative process that merges human creativity with machine output.
Making Your Life Easier
Here’s the bottom line about all these current and potential AI benefits: AI will make all our lives easier. We’ll become more productive, more effective, and less bothered by menial tasks. Our lives will be more enjoyable and safer. AI is already changing our world for the better and will continue to do so, in ways we cannot fully imagine. But risks abound.
