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  1. The Future of AI
    1. Humans In Control of AI
    2. AI’s Roadmap

The Future of AI

AI has continued to grow over the past few years. Throughout this growth, the benefits that AI can contribute to society, companies, and governments can be seen. These benefits could save lives; however, it is not without risk. There are many ethical concerns surrounding AI, so the future of AI should be considered carefully.

Humans In Control of AI

It is important to realize that as AI grows, humans need to be able to remain in control of AI. The Pew Research Center performed a study and found five concerns involving the evolutions of humans and AI:

  1. The use of AI reduces individuals’ control over their lives

  2. Surveillance and data systems designed primarily for efficiency, profit and control are inherently dangerous

  3. Displacement of humans’ jobs by AI will widen economic and digital divides, possibly leading to social upheaval

  4. Individuals’ cognitive, social and survival skills will be diminished as they become dependent on AI

  5. Citizens will face increased vulnerabilities such as exposure to cybercrime and cyberwarfare that spin out of control… [34]

All of the issues above represent an AI future where humans are controlled by AI rather than AI is controlled by humans. “Controlled” in this sense does not mean forced. Contrastingly, it just represents a relationship between AI and humans where humans are dependent on AI to lead functi oning lives. There are a few ways to help mitigate the risk of AI controlling humans.

  1. Implement rules across nations on how AI should be used. Doing this creates a common ground and keeps individual countries from developing AI that could harm society.

  2. Limit AI where possible. AI has many useful benefits, but as AI becomes more prevalent, humans will begin to decrease in their functionality. Limiting AI applications prevents humans from becoming unable to perform common tasks.

  3. Shift towards prioritizing humans’ improvement.

One of the individuals that responded to the Pew Research survey, Byron Johnson- CEO of Kernel, said

I strongly believe the answer depends on whether we can shift our economic systems toward prioritizing radical human improvement and staunching the trend toward human irrelevance in the face of AI. I don’t mean just jobs; I mean true, existential irrelevance, which is the end result of not prioritizing human well-being and cognition [34].

Byron Johnson highlighted the fact that by using AI for repetitive and minuscule tasks, humans will have the ability to learn more relevant things. If society neglects to improve human intelligence and functionality, the end result of AI could prove to be catastrophic.

AI’s Roadmap

Artificial intelligence has proven its benefits along with its ethical issues. It has already brought many benefits in health care, transportation, the environment, criminal justice, and economic inclusion [35]. Although it is impossible to predict the future, from the trend of AI, it appears that AI will continue to grow. As people become more aware of how AI can invade their privacy, they may change their minds. However, many people are willing to trade-off privacy for convenience. Michael Roberts, CEO of ICANN, suggests- “The record to date is that convenience overwhelms privacy. I suspect that will continue” [34].

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