Is Artificial Intelligence a Threat or an Aid to the Future of Humanity?

This essay examines the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in various sectors, including healthcare, automotive, gaming, and smart homes. It analyzes the potential benefits and drawbacks of AI, including its social impact on job displacement, data security, and ethical concerns. The essay concludes by discussing whether AI is ultimately a threat or an aid to the future of humanity.

IS ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE A
THREAT OR AN AID TO THE
FUTURE OF HUMANITY?

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Overview.....................................................................................................................................1
Applications and future aspects..................................................................................................2
Social Impact...............................................................................................................................5
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................6
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................7

INTRODUCTION
Artificial Intelligence is a theory or development of machines, software's, computer
systems or robots which can think intelligently similar way as humans to perform tasks like
speech recognition, visual perception,different language translation,decision making, weather
forecasting, printing a booklet or information in different languages simultaneously(Miller.,
2018). Use of Artificial intelligence has been increasing continuously within individuals as well
as in business in various sectors. This assignment will lay emphasis on Artificial Intelligence, its
applications, its future expansion and its social impact.
MAIN BODY
Overview
Since machines and computers have been invented their task performing capacity has
been continuously increasing. Computer systems have been continuously increasing in terms of
their size, speed and response time. Artificial Intelligence is a branch of computer science which
pursues making of software, machines, computer systems think intelligently like human beings
and perform tasks. AI is capable of learning from the current data or experiences, planning,
knowledge representation, reasoning and many more(Pedersen., 2018). It is used in different
sectors like in psychology, philosophy, computer science, information engineering, mathematics
etc. and is helping to solve challenges in software engineering, operation research, computer
science and many real world problems.
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Illustration 1: Three stages of AI
(Source: Amit., 2019)

It is simply related to any intellectual tasks. In today's modern world it is used for
different purposes in various fields for different uses and shown its effects. It has made human
work, decisions, predictions and many more things much easier and convenient for human use.
Applications and future aspects
There are various applications of Artificial intelligence used in various different sectors(Mehta
and Devarakonda., 2018).
 Healthcare Sector: It has been of great help and use in medical industry especially for
doctors. First of all because of this advancement in artificial intelligence medical
diagnosis is possible. Many major diseases like cancer, brain tumour etc. can be easily be
diagnosed so that their treatment can be started as soon as possible in their early stage
only so that patient can be cured. It has also solved dosage issues; it can save millions of
dollars in finding suggestions for accurate and appropriate doses of medicines for
treatment. Many technologies or software are developed which are used to find correct
treatment for major diseases like cancer. Like there are more than 800 vaccines and
medicines available for cancer treatment. It has always been difficult for doctors to
choose correct drug with accurate dose of medicine for the patient. There are many
software's which memorize all the cancer related papers and help doctors to predict the
combination of drugs that can be used to cure the patient from cancer. But there are still
many types of diseases like Alzheimer, leukaemia ( fatal cancer) etc. where treatment has
net been improved since years. For treatment of such type of diseases study has been
going on, maybe in future treatment for such diseases will be available. There are many
high risk patients who has multiple diseases and cannot be completely cured. For
treatment of such patients research has been going on where machine will ask different
questions from patients, study there medical records and will predict whether that patient
needs further treatment to get cured(Fox., 2018). Maybe in future it might be possible to
treat these patients. In case of heart failure there are many devices available which can
work similarly like a human heart and can replace it so that patient can live longer. There
are many more examples which proves that artificial intelligence has been a great help in
healthcare sector which has given hopes to doctor as well as patients that they can be
cured.
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 Automotive Industry: Artificial Intelligence has helped this industry to grow in different
ways like evolution and creation of drones, self-driven cars etc. there are more that 30
companies which are trying creation of driverless cars like Tesla trying to create cars with
autopilot features, Google who has successfully created a driverless car under project
Waymo, Apple who has developed a technology called LiDAR for driverless cars who
can detect pedestrians and cyclists but they are still working on this technology so that it
can be used in future without any hindrance for self driven cars. However, cars created by
these companies need assistance to be controlled. These vehicles are incorporated with
inbuilt systems like self-breaking, auto-lane changing, collision prevention techniques,
navigation, mapping and with a tracking device through which location of these vehicles
can be tracked. Together these systems are incorporated in cars connected to high
performance computers making then a complex vehicle. Recent development in this
sector has made it possible to create self-driven trucks, however, they are still under
testing and need a driver to control it. These cars are mainly based on the function called
mapping. These cars are pre-programmed with the map of that area with all the street
lights, curb heights included in it, so that these vehicles are aware of their
surroundings(Iliadis, Maglogiannis and Plagianakos., 2018). However, a study has been
going on where these cars can be driven according to the variety of surrounding so that a
safe environment can be maintained for all the passengers by an algorithm through which
these vehicles can be aware of their driving conditions and speed according to the area or
surrounding. As a result these vehicles are still not safe to be driven on road as there are
many things that need to considered for the safety of pedestrians and passengers to avoid
any collision or any critical situation. But maybe in future it might be possible to drive
these cars on road safely with anyone's assistance.
 Gaming Sector: Artificial Intelligence has shown development in gaming world as well.
It has successfully created a virtual world for gamers to play games in such a way that
they feel as if they are present in that world. Artificial Intelligence has been used to
generate response, act intelligently and learn from experience in non-player characters
which can think like a human. Players can play with computer as an opponent as well.
There are many games in which non-player character learns from their past encounters
with the player can improve themselves which increases the difficulty level of the game
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making it difficult for player to win(Steels and Brooks., 2018). There are many games
like monster hunter where monster becomes harder and unpredictable to fight with as the
game progress as they learn from its past encounters with the player. With the hep of AI
strategic games like chess, tic-tac-toe, poker can also be played in mobiles or computer
devices with computer where machine can think intelligently of large number of possible
moves or positions based on its knowledge.
 Virtual Assistance: Many intelligent personal assistant software's are developed with the
help of artificial intelligence that can perform service or tasks from an individual ordered
by them. There are many virtual assistant devices or software's like Apple Siri, Google
Now, Cortana, Alexa, chatbots and many more. These devices interpret human speech
and perform particular tasks ordered by them, it can be controlling home automation
devices, media playback, reading emails, answering questions, internet surfing for
answers, location, general information co commanding other applications etc. all these
tasks depend upon the request demanded by the users like for example Microsoft Cortana
can predict users needs and can get familiar to the way user speaks. Chatbots can be used
for online chats which can be used to entertain users or help them by assisting them or
providing them service required by them(Brynjolfsson, Rock, and Syverson., 2018).
 Smart Homes: Artificial Intelligence can be used in making homes smarter everyday by
predicting and learning behaviour pattern of people living there and can save money.
Like it can be used for automated heating and cooling of houses, turning on and off
boilers so that it can be used optimality, maintain inside temperature by maintaining
house temperature according to the outside weather conditions or monitoring housed and
alerting owner in case of any hazardous condition.
 Helping in dangerous jobs: AI has also helped in taking over dangerous jobs like bomb
defusing in which there is threat to lives. Many robots have been developed which can
defuse bombs efficiently and quickly in order to save many lives.
 Personal helps: Nowadays robots have been developed which can be used to perform
daily jobs of an individual easily to save time and money. It can be used for older people
so that they can perform their daily jobs and can live individually without anyone's help.
Robots do not have emotions, so maybe in future they can be used as a friend who has
emotions cad can understand human emotions easily(Hwang., 2018).
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Social Impact
There are many more sectors where Artificial Intelligence is used for growth and
development of they sector. These were the few applications where AI is used can and can be
developed in such a way so that they can be used in future development of the society. It has
impacted the society in both positive and negative way like change in any climatic condition can
be identified initially so that people can be warned about the climatic condition of a particular
area. Use of artificial intelligence has also increased ethical and security concerns like cyber
crimes and hacking has been continuously increasing. Data security in organizations as well as
for personal information has been an area of concern. Many hackers are starting to use many
devices through which they can gain access of systems and hack organizations main system and
theft of data can take place. Nowadays personal information of users are also not safe and can be
used anywhere without there permission through hacking(Marinchak, Forrest and Hoanca.,
2018). Many tools and software's have been developed through which fake videos or pictures can
be created which can fabricate videos or pictures of public figures doing things that never took
place. Nowadays many software's and machines are used in companies which are replacing
labours which has resulted in employment as machines do not need salaries, break and can
perform any task efficiently, effectively, with fewer efforts and in less time. However, according
to a survey AI will create more jobs than lost as manufacturing of these machines or software
needs more employees, maintenance of these software's and machines need employees.
Advancement of Artificial intelligence has increased the dimension of work and create more job
opportunity for people like nowadays demand for information technology department has
increased for maintenance of systems, software's, security of data within the organization and
many more.
This increasing use of Artificial intelligence has also helped companies to reach larger
number of customers within short duration with the help of digital media advertising, social
media advertising etc. These advertising helps customers to understand the brand, its products
and the services they provide more easily which increases the loyalty within the customers
towards the brand. It has also helped organization's to expand their business globally. As a result
it is playing a vital role in human society and economies and will be used even more in the
future. Artificial intelligence is used for betterment of human and for their bright future like in
medical field it has increased hopes in patients as well as in doctors for better treatment so that
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patients can be cured, in automotive industry with the development of self driven cars or
automation in driving has made driving easy or it has also increased carrier options of
individuals with its increasing use in organizations(Fernandez-Luque and Imran., 2018). All
these use of artificial intelligence has proved that it is an aid for the future but with various
threats to humanity and as its use will increase in future it will cast more shadow or threat for the
humanity.
CONCLUSION
From this assignment it has been summarized that Artificial Intelligence is used in
different sectors in various ways. It has given a scope of development for the growth of business
as well as individual use. It has impacted the society in many ways by making human jobs more
convenient and easy to be done as well as by creating many threats to humanity in different ways
like security of data. It has changed the way of living of individuals and way of doing business
for companies in both positive and negative ways.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Brynjolfsson, E., Rock, D. and Syverson, C., 2018. Artificial intelligence and the modern
productivity paradox: A clash of expectations and statistics. In The Economics of
Artificial Intelligence: An Agenda. University of Chicago Press.
Fernandez-Luque, L. and Imran, M., 2018. Humanitarian health computing using artificial
intelligence and social media: A narrative literature review. International journal of
medical informatics. 114. pp.136-142.
Fox, S., 2018. Domesticating artificial intelligence: Expanding human self-expression through
applications of artificial intelligence in prosumption. Journal of Consumer
Culture, 18(1), pp.169-183.
Hwang, T., 2018. Computational Power and the Social Impact of Artificial Intelligence. arXiv
preprint arXiv:1803.08971.
Iliadis, L., Maglogiannis, I. and Plagianakos, V. eds., 2018. Artificial Intelligence Applications
and Innovations: AIAI 2018 IFIP WG 12.5 International Workshops, SEDSEAL, 5G-
PINE, MHDW, and HEALTHIOT, (Vol. 520). Springer.
Marinchak, C.L.M., Forrest, E. and Hoanca, B., 2018. The Impact of Artificial Intelligence and
Virtual Personal Assistants on Marketing. In Encyclopedia of Information Science and
Technology, Fourth Edition (pp. 5748-5756). IGI Global.
Mehta, N. and Devarakonda, M.V., 2018. Machine learning, natural language programming, and
electronic health records: The next step in the artificial intelligence journey?.
Miller, T., 2018. Explanation in artificial intelligence: Insights from the social sciences. Artificial
Intelligence.
Pedersen, R.D., 2018. Motor vehicle artificial intelligence expert system dangerous driving
warning and control system and method. U.S. Patent 9,919,648.
Steels, L. and Brooks, R., 2018. The artificial life route to artificial intelligence: Building
embodied, situated agents. Routledge.
Online
Amit, P., 2019. Three stages of AI. [Online]. Available through: <https://amitpaka.com/three-
stages-of-ai-9d2df56dbd08>
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