Impact of AI on the Worklives of Society

Global Futures Research Paper

Table of Contents

Introduction

I. The Current Situation

II. Forces Driving Change

III. Personal Vision of the Future

3.1 How might we get there……………………………………………..

IV. Contributing to Shape the Development of Future Vision and who would you want to be in this future society?

Conclusion

Appendix

Appendix 1…………………………………………………………

Appendix 2…………………………………………………………

Appendix 3…………………………………………………………

Appendix 4…………………………………………………………

Appendix 5…………………………………………………………

Appendix 6…………………………………………………………

Bibliography

Introduction

Im

The first industrial revolution happened in 1784 when steam power was developed. Further following with second and third where electricity and information technology came into existence that is in 1870 and 1969 respectively (Appendix 1). Today, the world has stepped into the fourth industrial revolution of Artificial Intelligence. It is a stage where extreme automation can be found around the globe. The term ‘Artificial intelligence’ is a program where both hardware and software are designed. The term ‘software’ represents the algorithms and the data. The software is designed smart enough where people to perform human functions. With the constant improvement in the AI, there has been many controversies and misconceptions. Some humans are concerned about privacy, jobs while others are looking forward to this great invention. This report is going to focus on the particular area of AI which leaves to the research question that is:

‘How would the emergence of AI impact the work life of the people’?

Some of the points covered in the report are:

      The Current Situation

It talks about how AI is automating the work and the current progress towards it. Additionally, areas it lacks behind and needs improvement. Also, how they are adapting through machine learning.

      Forces Driving Change

The main sources are the reduction of cost, efficiency, competitive advantage, and innovation which is possible through Algorithms and data.

      Personal Vision of the Future

AI will replace the jobs that are low-skill but it would also create many other jobs that are still to be discovered. The forecast of how we will get there is covered.

      Contributing to Shape the Development of Future Vision

It can be done by educating people about AI and the changes, advising kids the career path for the future. 

I. The Current Situation

The rapid expansion of technology and digitalization is changing the way humans’ work. Today, every human is highly dependent on AI. The use of a calculator in our daily lives to do the small calculation is AI. Some other examples of AI technology that is used by the people are GPS, online shopping, language translator, face recognition, Siri, Amazon’s Alexa, and chatbot or the virtual assistant. These platforms have made the work of humans faster and easier. AI has created many business opportunities for companies to be more efficient. Amazon has recently launched its first store in California, named AmazonGo, where buyers can simply walk in the store and pick whatever they like. Their purchases are charged automatically which saves their time from the ques and daily hassle.

The wages in the market of China are rapidly increasing since 2000 due to the higher education and one-child policy. This has resulted in a decrease in the labor supply and a significant increase in labor cost as few people are taking low paid jobs. This higher labor cost has made the payback period for robots seemed to be shortened and are more efficient than humans in the industry. The countries like China, South Korea, Japan, USA, and Germany were the main buyers of robots in the year 2017 (Appendix 2). The four major companies that rule the global market of robots are Fanuc, ABB, Yaskawa, and Kuka.

Today, AI has made significant improvements in how they work in industries like Banking, finance, legal, insurance, healthcare, marketing, technology, media, and entertainment. Some of the development of the AI are:

1. In 2018, Google gave a demo of AI assistant making an actual call and booking the appointment for the haircut (Appendix 3). The AI understood the nuances of the conversation. This technology is named as Google Duplex. This shows that AI can act intelligently to the situation.
2. AI development of phone application that would provide support to the domestic violence victims (Appendix 4).
3. Beijing’s health industry has developed a system where the AI can trace the small activities in the brain that cannot be seen by a normal human being. AI is being efficient by saving the life of the people where doctors cannot do anything. (Appendix 5).
4. The first AI anchor has gone live in China. He can read the news like a normal human and learn from his live broadcast actions (Appendix 6).
5. AI has stepped into the field of dangerous jobs like defusing bombs with the help of human control. To perform this job, drones are being used as a physical counterpart. On the other hand, robotic welding is used to protect humans from toxic chemicals and heat produced (Ayers, 2016).
6. The senior citizens and disabled around the globe requires human care to look after them and feed them. The AI is fulfilling this need by introducing “Home” robots. These robots will help people in need with their daily life further leading to their well-being (Ayers, 2016).

As it has been seen that AI has achieved significant improvement in the various aspects of areas in various industries but it still lacks behind in emotions, ethics, security, and other. For Example, Self-driving cars. These cars are systematic and tend to follow the data and rules provided. But, what if, a young boy comes running towards the road and J-walk it. In this situation, the car would kill the boy as it would not realize, what a human brain can. These AI technologies will take time to develop and come into existence for the public use worldwide.

There has been debate among researchers that in the coming years the AI will develop superintelligence which is far beyond human level. On the other hand, some opposition to this and say that this might never happen and AI would require human assistance and go hand in hand. According to the International Federation of Robotics, “the total number of robots across the globe, in 2013 was about 1.6 million. However, the numbers have risen since then, with over 200,000 industrial robots being sold every year. From manufacturing to healthcare, caregiving, service industries, and even banking, robots are triggering fears about mass unemployment” (Bhatia, 2018).

II. Forces Driving Change

Technological change is the most driving force of industrial revolution 4.0. Artificial Intelligence is enabled to function similarly to a human brain. It is a system where it uses multiple data mining, pattern recognition, and algorithms to learn and perform the task. The stages that led to the AI revolution and the main driving force to its vision are:

1. Computing Power – there has been a constant increase in the computing power to develop high-functioning systems which now support AI towards its progress. The faster system will have more capability to perform higher caliber functions. In the tech industry, companies like Google are developing computing system like TPU (Tensor Processing Units) which will be 15 times faster than GPU. On the other hand, IBM is developing ‘quantum computing system’ to power their supercomputer, Watson. In this, the data clouds in the apps and smart devices would be able to communicate and learn from each other (CloudFactory, 2017).
2. Big data – the data generated by humans is increasing at a continuous pace further leading to the creation of new applications and processes every day. This data is unstructured and need humans to organize and analyze for machine learning.
3. Algorithms – today, algorithms allow machine self-learning by providing big data. For example, these self-driving cars are dependent on the visual data that help them to identify the objects, speed, and the distance on the road.

The advancement in the AI through computing power, big data, and algorithms have created more business opportunities and societal value by optimizing processes and gaining new insights. According to CEO of Google, Sundar Pichai, “the technology could eliminate many of the constraints we now face, helping us for example to make clean, cheap, reliable energy a reality” (Parker, 2018). It has been researched by Wilson and Daugherty that there is an enhancement in the performance when humans and machine come to work together and perform a task. This improves their skills, speed, quantitative capabilities, and scalability. They fill the gap where other cannot perform (H. James and Paul, 2018).

The driving force of machine learning will increase efficiency, better supply chain, time management, consistency, quality, cost benefits, and reduce errors in an organization. Some of them are:

      Increase productivity – According to the forecast done by BCG, 30% productivity would be increased by the advanced robots in many industries. Furthermore, 18% decrease in the total labor cost would be seen in the countries (Ranasinghe, 2015).

      Competitive advantage – Normally, countries like the USA outsource cheap labor from China or India. Today, the labor cost is increasing and countries can tackle these cost by adopting automation and staying competitive and produce goods. According to the BCG, there would be a rise in the industrial robot’s investment from 2-3% to 10% per year in the coming years (Ranasinghe, 2015).

      Cost-effective – robots can work tirelessly 24 hours and be more productive and cost-effective. They are the assistant to human workers. They can thus improve the manufacturing and other industries. For example, the venture, ‘United Robots’ launched by Soren Karlsson has been succeeded to develop a robot, Rosalinda to scan the sports events and develop a story. According to Karlsson, “he expects Rosalinda will write 100,000 stories this year for various Swedish media outlets, bringing his company revenue of about $590,000” (Goodman, 2017).

      Increase revenues – They can help the industries to come up with the new products and service with the help of their deep learning. For example, in the health industry, they are helping to diagnose diseases. This will result in a boost in the revenues of the company.

III. Personal Vision of the Future

AI keeps on automating and gets better. In the coming years, AI would replace the jobs that are low-skill. On the other hand, I believe it will create more jobs that people are still unaware of. The human concern of robots taking jobs is valid but isn’t the history repeating. For example, when ancestors were concerned about steam engines taking over industry work or the internet was taking or blue collar jobs were being replaced. At that time, no one imagined the jobs that the change would create. For example, being a web designer or online marketer. Today, kids should be taught or motivated to do learn those things which robots are bad at or it will take centuries to take over these jobs. For example, teacher, fund manager, radiology analysis, and an attorney.

3.1 How might we get there

This is how the journey of artificial intelligence would look like in the coming years:

      Prediction 1 – Today, technology like Alexa is listening to all the conversations done by the people but it does not have the capability to understand. By 2024, with the help of machine learning, they will adapt to human behavior and would understand their needs without feeding the information.

      Prediction 2 – By 2030, the maximum industries would have integrated AI and robots to increase their productivity, revenues and cut down their additional cost. The AI would be able to extract the data across the globe and come out with possible outcomes for the company to stay competitive. For example, Walmart Stores harnesses AI to optimize inventories and supply chains by predicting future demand and re-ordering stock.

      Prediction 3 – By 2035, the drivers of trucks, cars and other transportation would be replaced by self-driving automation. They would have full control over the technology and thus leading to fewer accidents.

      Prediction 4 – By 2050, AI is going to dramatically disrupt medical diagnostic procedures. AI services will offer the perfect surgical robots and finely tuned diagnostic algorithms to solve complex surgical and clinical problems.

      Prediction 5 – By 2060, there would be no Alexa or chatbots. The robots would come out of the screen to give the real-life experience to the people. Furthermore, in the same year, the flying cars would have come into existence.

These technologies would perhaps not replace human in the job industries but it would create their work easier and faster. They could also focus on the other areas and give time to families rather while robots can earn money. It will take decades or never for robots to develop human-level intelligence. For example, if it happens someday, humans have created this AI and they would limit it to somewhere. No matter what, when there would be a malfunction in robots, they would require human assistance to fix it.

IV. Contributing to Shape the Development of Future Vision and who would you want to be in this future society?

The change is inevitable. It is happening from generations. People are adapting with the time. Earlier, when there was no telephone, people used the letter to communicate. The newspaper was the medium to know about the world. Today, with the time technology is taking all over the world. Where children used to grow up playing outdoor sports, now video games have taken up their life.  Similarly, the AI is the new technology that is going to rule over the world in the coming years. It will keep on automating and bringing wealth to the nation by increasing productivity, reducing cost, and innovative ideas. It will change the lifestyle of people in terms of how they work, live, communicate, and career goals. The students today who dream to become a pilot, their dreams would be taken by the robots or the people who do warehouse work to earn wages to feed their family would be replaced by robots. 

Instead of resisting this change people should be ready to go along with it and accept it. This can be scary because people generally do not like change. It generates a feeling of uncertainty, fear, despair, love, and anger. I would like to contribute to this future vision by educating the people about the coming change and how this is going to impact their lives. I am optimistic about general AI in future but it taking super-human level intelligence does not seem to be happening. When I think about AI, the first thing strike in my mind is amazing and how is this even possible. It generates a sensation. In terms of ethics, privacy, and security I feel a bit shaky and do not trust the technology.

I would love to be in this future society and discover what all it can do. What uniqueness, challenges, and opportunities it can bring to the economy. Thinking about this gives goosebumps but the question is ‘Are robots going to earn money in behalf of the humans?’ or ‘If the jobs are replaced, what would be the purpose of humans?’ I do not see myself as a leader creating a future vision. I see myself as a human who goes with a totally new phase of life and adapting to it with thousands of other individuals around.

Conclusion

Artificial Intelligence has shown a real progress till date and already being used in countries like China, Germany, and South Korea. It has automated many industries but has flaws in their system. It needs to be modified, developed and needs improvement. The main driving force that is leading this technology in machine learning is algorithms and big data. With the help of this business can gain revenues, efficient, and cost reduction which will give them a competitive advantage.

To conclude, I believe that robots would not replace the humans in the coming years instead they will help them in the task and create more business opportunities. Although, there is a risk to low-skill jobs which can be easily replaced by robots. Furthermore, people should try to adapt to these changes and bring positivity about it.

Appendix

Appendix 1

Appendix 2

Appendix 3

Here is the link for the article, ‘AI assistant making an actual call’

Appendix 4

Here is the link for the article, ‘phone application that would provide support to the domestic violence’

Appendix 5

Here is the link for the article, ‘AI can trace the small activities in the brain’

Appendix 6

Here is the link for the article, ‘first AI anchor has gone live’

Bibliography

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