Artificial Intelligence: A Threat or Aid to the Future of Humankind?

This essay critically examines the multifaceted impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on the future of humanity, presenting a balanced perspective on its potential as both a threat and an aid. The essay explores various applications of AI, including its contributions to engineering, medicine, robotics, and military applications, highlighting both the advancements and the potential risks. It discusses how AI enhances efficiency, improves decision-making, and automates tasks, while also addressing concerns about job displacement, privacy violations, and the ethical implications of autonomous systems. The essay delves into the debates surrounding AI's impact on education, military applications, and the overall societal implications. Ultimately, the essay provides an in-depth analysis of the benefits and drawbacks of AI. The essay concludes by summarizing the key arguments and emphasizing the need for careful consideration of AI's development and implementation to ensure a future where AI benefits humanity.

Is artificial intelligence a threat
or an aid to the future of
humanity?

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Artificial intelligence refers to a computer science branch which is responsible for
creation of intelligent machines that works exactly like human. But it is self guided means it
works upon the instructions that are programmed under machines. It does not think of their own
like humans. Machine learning is a core factor of artificial intelligence where learning based on
supervision consists of classified and numerical regressions. This essay will argument about
threats or aid of artificial intelligence. It is highly a technical system based on specialisation.
Certain traits involved in artificial intelligence which are like reasoning, planning, learning,
knowledge, problem solving, manipulation. Artificial intelligence uses sensor inputs for
analysing the signal and work accordingly. Artificial intelligence is used in various areas like
spam filters, automation, voice to text features, security surveillance.
MAIN BODY
According to Gary Marcus, artificial intelligence is smarter than humans and it will be
more progressive till the end of century. It is in every field from engineering to medical. For
bringing changes in system of doing work in any department, artificial intelligence is helping too
much. Machine learning technologies is basic factor of AI (Steels and Brooks 2018). Engineers
reach to a higher level and creates such innovation skill which directs a machine according to the
desired work of humans. Each and every innovation brings different capabilities for bringing
different designing and development process which aids to the future. To store a huge amount of
data becomes a challenging task for engineers to bring such a technology which helps to store
and access data easily. With the applications of AI like cloud computing, real-time monitoring,
smart machines will aid for storing big and critical data easily and with better efficiency for long
time purpose (Lu and et.al., 2018). To communicate with machines, artificial intelligence helps a
lot in improving machine learning process. Robotics is the best example of AI. Robot is a
machine which works under the instructions that are programmed under it and produce a result
accordingly. It uses sensor inputs for analysing the signal and produce output according to input.
Robot also has a process of image scanning where a camera is set in it which scan the image and
produce results accordingly. For example, in some countries like Italy, robot are working as a
waiter in restaurant. It is highly a new technology which will benefited to humans in future and
makes the process of doing work easy and efficient. For future purpose, engineers are planning
1

to make a such a machine or robot which works as traffic controller who will handle the traffic
problems in efficient manner (Samek, Wiegand and Müller, 2017). This is an aid to the humans
for the future purpose where robots will trouble shoot the problems instead of humans. Likewise,
Artificial intelligence also helps the photography sector where photographs will be taken with
the help of drone. Humans don't need to run from here and there. They just need to move drone
accordingly and take the pictures. It improves the quality and quantity of photography. People
who are saying about drawbacks of job due to artificial intelligence, Gary Marcus stated a
comment that if AI is replacing humans with machines then it also creating more sectors where
humans get more jobs and can show their talents and skills. AI also has a great impact in medical
field. Some diseases require instant actions, in this condition AI uses the previous data and
produce result instantly and helps in doing fast diagnosis. With the use of remote presence robot,
doctors can assemble the patients who are in remote locations. It saves time of patients (Seshia,
Sadigh and Sastry, 2017).
Michigan State University AI researcher Arend Hintze comments on positive impacts of
artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence is expanding to every sector and it is taking the place
of humans. But this a threat to humans that how will humans justify self by comparing with
intelligent machines. Although intelligent machines are the creation of humans only and due to
this, humans will face problems to prove themselves to be better than machines in the future.
Due to advancement in technology, average people are in fear of taking jobs at better position
and also a risk of getting employed in the future. AI decreases the number of job opportunities
for average people and labour class people because intelligent machines are taking the place of
humans. A robot is limited to specified work. For example, a chess playing robot can defeat
humans but if a case of driving car is given to same robot then it will do it able to perform. This
results in having different robots for different tasks. This will increase the cost through which
developing countries cannot afford this much cost. At a result, Developing countries will be
always back behind developed countries if Artificial intelligence used in every anonymous sector
(Liu, Yang, Zio and Chen, 2018). For example, in self driving car, if a child comes in between
path, then it need an immediate stop button for saving child. So parameters that are feed in
machine are more responsible for saving a life. This will be a big threat for future in self driving
cars. By implementing artificial intelligence techniques, anyone can access data that is stored in a
machine. It reduces the privacy and becomes threat for organisation to win a competitive
2

advantage. A robot which uses data of Google to produce a result can track information of other
organisation which will be a loss for same organisation. For productivity of an organisation, if AI
benefits organisation then, it also creating a threat for organisation. Employees in organisation
will be stress free and do not take responsibility of achieving goals due to implementation of
intelligent machines in different functional units of organisation. This will result in less
productivity of organisation and employees will become habitual of it and if any circumstances,
work load increases they will not able to do it and face many problems.
Ray Kurzweil stated in favour of artificial intelligence by saying that AI is most helpful
in military by recognising explosive weapons at an instant. It is a machine learning technique
which is used for identifying, inferencing, matching, for making decisions. Vehicle borne
improvised explosive devices can be recognised easily with the help of AI. It uses lightweight
learning technologies and reasoning platforms for solving problems and provide appropriate
solutions. Military is focussing on improving cybersecurity, weapons techniques, or any other
military units with the help of AI. By the implementation of AI in military, number of sources to
be found for finding the truth against other countries will be increased. AI will improve the
quality of capturing video and audio of other countries. It will help to get the information
regarding strategies for other countries. This will help to win the war. Robots that are made
under intelligent machines will be most helpful in winning war at countries border because
robots will have no fear of weapons. They will work on their own by analysing the programming
and produce results accordingly (Hill, Ford and Farreras, 2015). It has been researched that ISIS
is using remote controlled drones for military operations which are more helpful in getting
information efficiently. DART which is a planning tool that is used in desert storms. This helps
to manage information. For future purpose, AI will help to take decisions instantly at a time of
war at border. Similarly, AI is most helpful in sports. AI improves the process of analysis of data
to take decisions, sales of tickets, training, sponsorship and many more. This big data is easily
stored with the help of cloud computing and system learning. It also helps to bring automation in
sports by broadcasting live matches to all over the world. NASCAR, a AI tool which is used in
sports for identifying infractions with the help of camera and technologies. It makes easy for
public to see the matches of any sport game live by staying at distant at any location. Engineers
done a great job by making machines intelligent. It decreases the level of work load that has been
put upon the humans for achieving the goals. For security purpose in organisation, AI plays an
3

important role. CCTV cameras are working like a human eye. Without the presence of humans in
room, a supervisor can see the work of employees at any location, it's being near or far. For
handling security it becomes ease to find out the defaulter (Huang and Rust, 2018). CCTV
cameras record the pictures and video clips of rooms through image scanning process. This AI
techniques helps every department like for crime department, it is very helpful to get the
evidence report of criminal (Ongsakul and Dieu, 2016).
Max Tegmark, a founder of future of life institute stated about the irrelevant factors of
artificial intelligence in military. He stated by saying that if one country like US applies AI in
army system then it becomes essential to adopt AI techniques by other countries too for standing
in front of US. It is necessary to ban AI in each and every country because destroying robots is
more expensive (Cockburn, Henderson and Stern, 2018). For making a specified robot, it needs a
lot of research and techniques which will consumes both time and money. While a significant
instruction is given to the robot for performing a task. At a war time, if robot is not reach in of a
supervisor then, it becomes difficult to instruct robot and this can be very dangerous for self
country. Because robot cannot identifies who were friends and who were enemies. Either it is
necessary to make such a intelligent machine which recognises self and take decisions
accordingly. It should be such instructed that more deaths do not occur, it should be like to win
war only. Cost is more invested in making robots. If a robot is handed over in wrong hands, then
also, it can result in destruction of world. Because an intelligent machine is more dangerous than
humans because humans work accordingly to their feelings but robots do not have feelings.
Robots for detecting bombs in explosive area needs too much money for making them because
they should be hardened electrified so that EMP blast by a nuclear bomb can disable robot. A
malfunction malware or virus can be come anywhere in machines. Robot machines cannot be
perfect at every time. So, world cannot be dependent on intelligent machines. By changing
programming in robot machines, it can be used in against of its owner because it does not have
knowledge of right and wrong. Humans are needed to make them perfect in every morning to do
work efficiently. If humans are doing both the work; that is self work and also intelligent
machines work, then what is need of AI (Azar and Vaidyanathan, 2015). In education system AI
is implied, but with respect to aiding, it is becoming threat to students. They are becoming lazy
and do not do their work on their own. They are taking help of mobile phone(application of AI)
which decreases their brain level. Future is in hands of those students and those only are not
4

getting basic knowledge and are getting habitual of using AI applications which is a major threat
for humans in the future.
CONCLUSION
This essay summarised about threats and aids of artificial intelligence. AI in different
fields are discussed in this essay and their advantages and disadvantage too. In engineering field,
artificial intelligence benefits to engineers for making their process of doing work easy and
efficient. At the same time, it has been discussed that AI decreases job opportunities for average
people. AI in medical field is also discussed for getting accurate and instant diagnosis results and
the same time it is analysed that it increases the cost due to which developing countries are
facing problems. In this essay, military and sports field are also discussed in which both pros and
cons are analyses. An argument debate held between different authors and this essay consists of
four authors in which two are in favour and two are in against.
5

REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Azar, A.T. and Vaidyanathan, S. eds., 2015. Computational intelligence applications in
modeling and control. Springer International Publishing.
Chen, M. and et.al., 2017. Machine learning for wireless networks with artificial intelligence: A
tutorial on neural networks. arXiv preprint arXiv:1710.02913.
Cockburn, I.M., Henderson, R. and Stern, S., 2018. The impact of artificial intelligence on
innovation (No. w24449). National Bureau of Economic Research.
Hill, J., Ford, W.R. and Farreras, I.G., 2015. Real conversations with artificial intelligence: A
comparison between human–human online conversations and human–chatbot
conversations. Computers in Human Behavio., 49. pp.245-250.
Huang, M.H. and Rust, R.T., 2018. Artificial intelligence in service. Journal of Service
Research. 21(2). pp.155-172.
Kolbjørnsrud, V., Amico, R. and Thomas, R.J., 2016. How artificial intelligence will redefine
management. Harvard Business Review, 2.
Liu, R., Yang, B., Zio, E. and Chen, X., 2018. Artificial intelligence for fault diagnosis of
rotating machinery: A review. Mechanical Systems and Signal Processing. 108. pp.33-
47.
Lu, H. and et.al., 2018. Brain intelligence: go beyond artificial intelligence. Mobile Networks
and Applications. 23(2). pp.368-375.
Ongsakul, W. and Dieu, V.N., 2016. Artificial intelligence in power system optimization. Crc
Press.
Rigas, E.S., Ramchurn, S.D. and Bassiliades, N., 2015. Managing electric vehicles in the smart
grid using artificial intelligence: A survey. IEEE Transactions on Intelligent
Transportation Systems. 16(4). pp.1619-1635.
Samek, W., Wiegand, T. and Müller, K.R., 2017. Explainable artificial intelligence:
Understanding, visualizing and interpreting deep learning models. arXiv preprint
arXiv:1708.08296.
Seshia, S.A., Sadigh, D. and Sastry, S.S., 2016. Towards verified artificial intelligence. arXiv
preprint arXiv:1606.08514.
Steels, L. and Brooks, R., 2018. The artificial life route to artificial intelligence: Building
embodied, situated agents. Routledge.
6