2019 and Artificial Intelligence: Who Controls Who?

It's 2019 and I know that the whole confounded world is looking forward to start the new year with optimism and hope for the betterment of all, or at least that's what the people who control the world usually say. But let's not get off on the wrong foot here since most of these people that are controlling us will soon be finding themselves among the common people, just like you and me, bowing down to our new masters...Artificial Intelligence or what most of us have come to know as A.I. Now I know that most of you, if not all of you have already heard of A.I. and the bright promise that it brings with regard to automating the way we choose and decide for ourselves. 

A.I. has already been implemented into our lives on a daily basis and is already being used in various ways, through various industries. During the early 1980's, the first robotic assembly line was used in the production of automobiles in Japan, which inevitably increased production and reduced downtime and human error, but eventually led to cutting down the human work force by as much as half. On a business point of view, this means more profit and less overhead expenditure, which only meant that less human intervention was needed and this was a favorable condition to manufacturers. However, this also meant the eventual rise of unemployment among the hardworking Japanese workforce which relies on the automotive industry, constituting to 25% of Japan's GDP.

So you don't have to be an economist to figure out what is really happening here. A.I. will eventually replace human workers as an alternative to improving and optimizing production. So, what happens to these hardworking people? It is really amusing to know that the same technology that we perceived as beneficial for the improvement of our society, would eventually be  the one that will be lining us up against the wall and shooting us in the head. But, that does not mean that there are no benefits from this technology, not for the most of us, but it will be just for the chosen few, well, clearly it would be just a chosen few.

 I do want to point out that in reality, Artificial Intelligence does have an advantage when it comes to lowering the ratio of error when it comes to production. There is however, an underlying fact that A.I. is already being used to map out our human emotions and it will be used to consolidate our behavior with regard on how we make decisions on a daily basis. A.I. is already being implemented on Google and it is recording every bit of information that we put into our browser, which in turn makes calculative  and speculative assertions on how we think for ourselves. To state it more clearly and precise, A.I. already knows what we are thinking and knows our next decisive move.

During the latter part of this year, I had the pleasure of meeting  Daniel Faggela, who is one of the world's leading advocate and pioneer for the implementation of A.I. as he clearly states the advantages and disadvantages of implementing Artificial Intelligence on a world-wide scale. Daniel Faggela, who is the founder of TechEmergence, talks about the possibilities and pitfalls of integrating Artificial Intelligence. He said that there are certain "contexts" that evolve around the financial sector and the employment sector, that could affect many people.

Daniel Faggela

Founder of TechEmergence

He even gave a detailed analogy how we as humans would approach a certain problem without us knowing any inputted information with regard to the task that should be  undertaken. He stated that Artificial Intelligence would greatly improve efficiency. Unlike humans, A.I. can easily evaluate a myriad of aspects, unseen by humans, making everyday tasks easier. Which puts the ball in the favor of A.I. Daniel Faggela also stated that the evident fear of losing one's job at the moment  may not seem to be an alarming concern since system integration of A.I on a global scale is yet to be seen, although Daniel stated that world economies are considering this and are interested for its countless possibilities.

Daniel Faggela went to say in a joking and reassuring way that even if Artificial Intelligence does get implemented, he assured everyone that there will be no killer robots that will threaten human existence, but, it will greatly change human society either way. He clearly said that A.I. would eventually force people to adapt to it's (A.I) existence, stating that people need to improve or add new skills in order not to be left out in the rain with regard to A.I.'s hence the relevancy of the human work force and its importance to being an integral part of production.

For many people, A.I. could be regarded as a tool, a means to lessen human error, but then again, isn't that the way that has enabled us to improve and jump over the boundaries and obstacles of or society? As a society, we have relied on technology to make daily tasks more easier in the most quickest means possible and that alone is an indicator that we can not do without technology, as losing it would mean that we have to resort to manually running society using the old methods.

It was clear from the start of the Industrial revolution that we  would end up optimizing our knowledge to benefit the most of what we have collected during the past one hundred years and improving on that to pave the way to a better future for humanity to have accomplished what we have now. That also means that technology has already have a grasp around our necks in a metaphorical sense.

The trial and error factor that enabled us to create the world as we know it today and the fact that A.I. is going to base all that information as a starting point to drive our society to an unknown frontier. To most of us, a vague question stands if we are willing to rely on technology for our continued survival as a specie? Are you willing to wager your life riding an unmanned vehicle controlled by artificial intelligence, controlled by bits and pieces of coded scripts?

Just last year, news of a driver-less Uber car killing a woman from Arizona hit the headlines, putting into scrutiny the safety of using Artificial Intelligence on self-driving vehicles:

Self-driving Uber kills Arizona woman in first fatal crash involving pedestrian

An autonomous Uber car killed a woman in the street in Arizona, police said, in what appears to be the first reported fatal crash involving a self-driving vehicle and a pedestrian in the US. Tempe police said the self-driving car was in autonomous mode at the time of the crash and that the vehicle hit a woman, who was walking outside of the crosswalk and later died at a hospital. There was a vehicle operator inside the car at the time of the crash.
Uber said in a statement on Twitter: “Our hearts go out to the victim’s family. We are fully cooperating with local authorities in their investigation of this incident.” A spokesman declined to comment further on the crash.

Who's driving? Autonomous cars may be entering the most dangerous phase

The company said it was pausing its self-driving car operations in Phoenix, Pittsburgh, San Francisco and Toronto. Dara Khosrowshahi, Uber’s CEO, tweeted: “Some incredibly sad news out of Arizona. We’re thinking of the victim’s family as we work with local law enforcement to understand what happened.”Uber has been testing its self-driving cars in numerous states and temporarily suspended its vehicles in Arizona last year after a crash involving one of its vehicles, a Volvo SUV. When the company first began testing its self-driving cars in California in 2016, the vehicles were caught running red lights, leading to a high-profile dispute between state regulators and the San Francisco-based corporation.
Police identified the victim as 49-year-old Elaine Herzberg and said she was walking outside of the crosswalk with a bicycle when she was hit at around 10pm on Sunday. Images from the scene showed a damaged bike. The 2017 Volvo SUV was traveling at roughly 40 miles an hour, and it did not appear that the car slowed down as it approached the woman, said Tempe sergeant Ronald Elcock.

A Precarious Fine Line Between Safety And Assurance

Artificial Intelligence can open up new possibilities, ushering in a new era on how technology can greatly improve the lives of people. But, is there any assurance that this technology will not falter? How can people be sure that A.I. will be as reliable, particularly, how can we be certain that it will not backfire on us? Does A.I. have the ability to become fully self-reliant without any access to the internet, since we as a civilization has made that technology (the internet) as the basis on how we can use all pre-existing technology? We have to put in mind that these are all but machines that could eventually fail on us whether we like it or not, and it would be good to know if there was any chance of A.I. killing us off? Electrical fluctuations, spikes in the magnetic field, solar flares just to name a few, could have detrimental effects on A.I. and it turns out that we have no control over this.

From a broader, introspective view, A.I. seems like a thrilling concept, although it depends on which side of the fence your sitting on. Points of view may vary. An ordinary person may see A.I. somewhat like a threat when it comes to securing a future with regard to employment but on the other hand, if you were a person with a disability, you may look at A.I. very differently. To a society that thrives and relies with the need for fast and precise information, A.I. seems to be a variable alternative to choose since it is likely to filter out human error, making more accurate and decisive decisions, but does it have the empathy to understand our likely needs? Will Artificial Intelligence become as sentient as us? Or, we can wait until the technology for A.I. learns to say: "Oh! Geez Bruh, my bad, I didn't mean to kill a human being!"

Which brings to question the rest of the under developed world, the part of the world that does not have access to decent technology. It seems that emerging technology can only be utilized extensively if a certain demography can use it. Will A.I. improve the way we live in this world as a whole, meaning can every one truly benefit from it? Technology paves the way for a better future and that is a fact that we can not ignore, but it does raise certain questions of dominance over one over the other. If world governments do decide to rely on A.I., where would it put most of us who are deemed "irrelevant" by the system?

Seems like for every notch made by human technology, drives a wedge between our relevance as a specie, that creates a barrier, a seemingly invisible but real wall, separating us from "them". There are no obscure points of view and the integration of Artificial Intelligence offers a lot of compromising possibilities for an unknown future, regardless of the fact that we may wake up one day to find out that we have become useless and irrelevant for that matter. Does this mean that the dawn of Artificial Intelligence is the dusk of human society?

A Darker Perspective

There is a dark side of human nature that somehow ruins things for most interpersonal relationships among humans. Remember that Biosphere 2 project decades ago? Well, it turned out that the whole project failed because of one aspect, and that is, the human aspect. It turned out that the participants became paranoid to one another that led them to group among themselves, even becoming secluded from one another, ending the project in utter failure. Human nature tends to be tribal, and the outcome of the Biosphere 2 project clearly revealed that primal side of humans. Don't you think that one of the major reasons on why people are eagerly pushing for the rapid implementation of Artificial Intelligence is because, people can't stand one another and they rather be alone with their pets or A.I. companions?


In Asia, particularly in Japan and China, some companies have already began to sell sex dolls with integrated A.I. as an alternative in compensating the need for people to have a yearning for "personal relationships". There is a bright side to this, namely, it will greatly reduce the chances of sexually transmitted diseases to spread, and also, it will greatly reduce the anxiety of having to endure a relationship with a nagging partner. But there are repercussions to this seemingly growing trend that has began to spread to the western world as well. If human society begins to accept having Artificial Intelligence as a noteworthy alternative to a conventional, interpersonal, human relationship, will it begin to reduce our population as a species, eventually reducing our numbers, and, heaven forbid, eventually ending our existence as a whole? This reflects the stark reality of our society, bringing out in the open, our reclussiveness that we as human beings are not comfortable with the fact that we are indeed, truly paranoid.