From what I’ve learned so far, I truly do believe that AI may very well be the precipice of our generation. I believe it will be a turning point that will either further advance us in every industry, or begin the end of life as we know it. I personally am against the use of AI, though I can see the possibilities and the good AI can do if used properly. Artificial Intelligence is simply a series of code that is both meant to recognize and recreate patterns, it’s a replication or reflection of whoever their creator was and what their goal was, a machine made to do what humans normally would. AI in general, isn’t a relatively new concept, in fact we’ve been theorizing and worrying about artificial intelligence since the 1950’s when Alan Turning first wondered “could machines think” (I found this in ‘The birth of Artificial Intelligence (AI) research | Science and Technology’ a short article backed by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory which briefly covers the history of AI). While there have been a lot of breakthroughs with this technology as of late, we’ve been working on it for a while now. It’s not an entirely new concept anymore and it has yet to be fully normalized. It is, however, a technology we’ve been using to make our lives more convenient throughout the past couple decades. The Roomba, for example, began development in the 1990’s before it was released in 2002, it’s a robot that was programmed using artificial intelligence to vacuum so that we don’t have to. Comfort and convenience is a perfect model of business that companies love to explore and strive in. Thanks to AI, there is a whole new window for products that are meant to make things even simpler and easier or help create and advance in technology and medicine.
Artificial intelligence has such a large window of available products that can be expanded on, that there’s an entire market for AI toilets, toasters, and fridges. Their very lucrative as well, roomba alone has generated almost a billion dollars in sales. Companies like BJ’s and Target use AI chatbots to help their customers find products, some stores like Stop & Shop have robots that move throughout the store to help customers. It’s even in our search engines now. I’m going to use google for an example this time. If you search something on google, it will have an AI overview section to briefly explain the topic you’re looking into. I searched ‘Driving jobs’ on their web browser, the first that came up was an ‘*AI Overview’ that listed four different routes that I can take along with links to all the jobs related to my search and how to get those kinds of jobs. It even listed some tips on other jobs that are less popular along with very clear instructions on how I should get my drivers license along with a CDL (commercial drivers license) if I so choose. Corporations like Boston Dynamics’ and ‘TESLA’ though, are choosing to walk on a different path. They are working on creating humanoid bodies so that their AI can replace and aid us in our work and tasks throughout the day to help us save time and energy, enhance our work quality, or even replace human workers for jobs that may be deemed too dangerous or inefficient to be in. Boston Dynamics is a company that is creating and has made quite the impressive line up of machines. Within just the past decade they made a robot dog named Spot, a small robot dog which was generally created to inspect industrial sites, carry out hazardous missions, and make deliveries. They can even cross coordinate and travel in packs if need be in order to complete their tasks. Boston dynamics has received DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Project Agency) funding and have begun to work on a project known as ‘Big Dog’ (which is basically a much larger version spot that will basically be a walking mechanical mule for rough terrain) for the military, along with Atlas (the most flexible humanoid robot so far). Tesla on the other hand is working on a robot called Optimus, a robot that has a really similar resemblance to Sunny from IROBOT, and is essentially a much slower version of Sunny. Tesla also creates multiple lines of self-driving cars, powered by AI.
Going off of the self-driving cars, there are plenty of companies working on using AI in Semi-trucks as well. There are typically 500,000 accidents a year caused by or involved with these Semi’s, with around 5,000 fatalities and 100,000 injuries as a result. Companies like Aurora, Volvo, and Kodiak are already working on completely autonomous trucks. While AI shouldn’t have complete control over the vehicle, giving drivers the option for an artificial co-pilot could help mitigate the risks for all drivers on the road, depending on the conditions. It can and has even been used for medical purposes. The movie IROBOT would be the perfect example to see all the benefits. It shows self-driving cars and trucks, the humanoid AI, along with the possible medical applications of AI like prosthesis. It’s a movie that came out in 2004 starring Will Smith, based off of the novel ‘Caves of Steel’ by Isaac Asimov, which shows a future powered and influenced by AI and the related products. If you exclude the general premise, this movie showcases plenty of the possible uses for AI to benefit humanity as a whole, it even showed some of the downside though we will be covering that at a later date. Artificial Intelligence, if used properly, can be used to make our lives safer, more convenient, and much more productive