“We designed to be trusted with our homes, with our way of life, with our world. But, did we design them to be trusted?” Quoted from the trailer of the science fiction film I, Robot, directed by Alex Proyas, viewers are presented with a contrary reality in which machines have been given power to somewhat of an extent to ensure they meet their goal in providing safety for humans. In this modern age, with the vast accessibility to technology it is goes without saying that anything you want is a click away, or as Siri or Alex might interpret it as a voice command or facial recognition away. The two previously mentioned, Siri and Alexa of Apple and Amazon respectively, are an example of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in today’s society; as they fit the definition of ‘machines with intelligence’. Artificial Intelligence technologies have been become “increasingly adopted and incorporated in industries and organizations to reduce the workload of humans.” (Vyas, 2018). The impact of this has made humans jobs easier and faster especially in the medical field, day to day activities, and factory jobs. Although, this may seem like an exceptional thing for the development of societies, people on the other side against the adoption of Artificial Intelligence into society believe it to be much of a detriment focusing heavily on the uncertainty of it with much regards to the replacement it brings and safety in general.
For several decades, many have thought of technology to bring the downfall of the world, ironically enough it so happens to one of the biggest things used throughout societies be it for communication, productivity or means of learning. With the recent forms of technology stored away in your pocket or as your speaker it takes only a matter of seconds for one to gain access to information such as weather, news or setting a ten-minute timer all from a simple voice command, but exactly how much power do this AI technologies have. This paper will analyze the controversial use of artificial intelligence in society with regards to its productivity and safety.
Amazon’s Alexa has received much backfire, despite its superior ability to play the music you want or tell you the weather, this in particular has to do a safety issue as it has been found guilty to invading privacy. This comes at Amazon, claiming to have listen to an “extremely small number of interactions from a random set of customers” for the purpose of improving the “accuracy of the software’s future responses.” (Alaimo,2019). Although, humans are behind it they are encouraging AI devices like Alexa to pick up on things said in the background and generate predictions on things that are relatable to that. Safety is the number one issue here for opponents as users of the technology should be able to have command over the device and how it functions.
Whereas, advocates for the use of AI directly point to the productivity behind it asserting the command one is able to have over it as they may be preoccupied with something they can simply use their voice to control it. With this type of command they gain more data and are able to put it towards a better use of working towards a specific goal or command.
References
Alaimo, K. (2019, April 26). Perspectives: The real danger of Alexa listening to our convos. Retrieved April 26, 2020, from https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/26/perspectives/amazon-echo-listening-alaimo/index.html
I, Robot – Official Trailer [Hd]. (2012). Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rL6RRIOZyCM
Rahwan, I. (2015). Retrieved from http://www.mit.edu/~irahwan/cartoons.html
Vyas, K. (2018, December 3). 7 Ways AI Will Help Humanity, Not Harm It. Retrieved April 24, 2020, from https://interestingengineering.com/7-ways-ai-will-help-humanity-not-harm-it
