In this modern era, technology is evolving faster than ever, and it has reached a point where we have been able to build computer systems that can perform with human intelligence, which we now know as artificial intelligence. With artificial intelligence being one of the hottest and fastest growing areas in technology, we need to be prepared for what’s to come from it, whether it should be something to be embraced or feared. I think the answer is both; artificial intelligence is something that we should accept in order to thrive as a human race and also be cautious of so that it does not overtake our society. So far, some of the big artificial intelligence creations in the past few years have been AlphaGo, Deep Blue, Watson, and AlphaZero. While these AI have been able to prove that they have exceeded human intelligence in specific tasks, they still have limitations in what they can do compared to a human. Nevertheless, their superhuman intelligence is indisputable and definitely can aid us in various problems and help us learn new things that we couldn’t have thought on our own. There are popular tests to measure the intelligence of these AI systems, such as the Turing Test and the Chinese Room. These tests show that AI that pass these tests demonstrate intelligence similar to a human, but a common counterargument is that while AI can display intelligent behavior, it is merely an imitation of human intelligence. Even though I don’t believe AI doesn’t currently truly reflect human intelligence, it is useful enough if it can behave like one by passing the tests. So then at what point could artificial intelligence be considered completely reflective of human intelligence? Although it seems absurd to think that computers will ever be exactly the same as us, there has been extensive research going on in connectomics that suggests that if we can map the connections going on in our brain in a computer, then perhaps computer systems won’t be too far off of normal human behavior. Because things such as emotions and moral decisions come from the brain, a complete replication of the brain would mean that it would be possible for computer systems to have a mind of a human as well. That would mean humans, despite our extremely complicated organic nervous system, can be reduced to a conglomeration of neural connections that can be represented by a computer if we can successfully map those complex connections. But thinking of the impact of AI and automation in our society, we know that it can do good things for us, like delivering packages and taking orders at restaurants, for instance. We would not have to waste human labor to do the kind of mindless tasks and instead use our skills in more important tasks where human intuition matters more. Yet, the transition to implement AI and automation into our society will undoubtedly hurt those whose jobs are being replaced by robots and machines. This is why we should take the implementation of AI into society with caution so that we can minimize the human losses while yielding the most benefit from AI. Ultimately, I do believe in the hype of AI because combining human intuition with computer intelligence can help us to further innovation and live our lives more efficiently.
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