{"id":99811,"date":"2020-03-10T18:12:11","date_gmt":"2020-03-11T01:12:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=99811"},"modified":"2020-03-10T18:12:11","modified_gmt":"2020-03-11T01:12:11","slug":"artificial-intelligence-far-reaching-implications","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2020\/03\/10\/artificial-intelligence-far-reaching-implications\/","title":{"rendered":"ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: FAR-REACHING IMPLICATIONS"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr. Daya Hewapathirane<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

In\ncomputer science, artificial\nintelligence\u201d or AI, <\/strong>refers to intelligence demonstrated by machines, in\ncontrast to the natural intelligence displayed by humans and other\nanimals. It is the ability of a computer\nprogram<\/a> or a machine<\/a> to think and learn. AI is one\nof the major developments of our time. Machine learning, and the implications\nthat go with it, are shaking up many aspects of how we do things, allowing us\nto deploy AI where we previously used a human or a more inefficient process.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AI can be quite helpful to businesses,\neducational institutions, and every-day life. \nCompanies are implementing voice recognition and speech recognition\nsoftware across their phone and internet-based customer service systems\nallowing people to interact with computers as if they were human. It\u2019s one\nthing for people to talk to computers, but can computers talk to people and\ntalk like people? That\u2019s what developers of natural language generation\nsoftware are trying to accomplish \u2013 create artificial intelligence that can\ngenerate text that reads with the same nuances of human speech. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Artificial\nIntelligence represents a huge opportunity across virtually every development sector. Developers are designing intelligent machines that\nmake decisions based on logic and rules. Soon, these decision-making machines\nmay be running major companies, military agencies, and government departments\nall by themselves. Recent advances in artificial intelligence are not likely to\nlead to world-dominating machines any time soon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some think that AI can be a real danger to\nhumanity if it continues to progress at its current pace. An extreme goal of AI\nresearch is to create computer programs that can learn<\/a>, solve problems, and think logically. Eventually researchers hope to\ncreate a “general artificial intelligence” which can solve many\nproblems instead of focusing on just one. Researchers are also trying to create\ncreative and emotional AI which can possibly empathize or create art. Artificial intelligence involves many different\nfields like computer\nscience<\/a>, mathematics<\/a>, linguistics<\/a>, psychology, neuroscience, philosophy among others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Professor Y<\/strong>uval Noah Harari (https:\/\/twitter.com\/harari_yuval?lang=en<\/a>)  is an Israeli historian who has written two\nbestsellers: Sapiens<\/em><\/a>, which examined\nthe course of early human history, and Homo Deus<\/em><\/a>, which speculated\non where we might be heading as a post-human species. His new book, 21\nLessons for the 21st Century<\/em>, is an exploration of the difficulties that\nconfront us at the present. Professor Yuval Nova Harari says that the race\nto develop artificial intelligence (AI) is gathering momentum, and as the\nUnited States and China pull ahead, other countries, especially in the\ndeveloping world, are lagging far behind. If they don\u2019t catch up, their\neconomic and political prospects will be grim. AI already makes it possible to\nhack human beings\u2014to collect data about individuals and then use it to\ndecipher, predict, and manipulate their desires. All countries, regardless of\nwhether they are tech superpowers or not, will feel the effects of the AI\nrevolution. To hack humans, governments and corporations need access to\nenormous amounts of information about real-life human behavior, which makes\ndata perhaps the most important resource in the world. But most of the world\u2019s\ndata is mined by the United States, China, and companies based there.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If this trend continues, the world could soon\nwitness a new kind of colonialism\u2014data colonialism\u2014in which raw information is\nmined in numerous countries, processed mainly in the imperial hub, and then used\nto exercise control throughout the world. For example, data giants in San\nFrancisco or Shanghai could compile the entire medical and personal history of\npoliticians and officials in distant countries and use it to influence them or\nmanipulate public opinion about them. Beyond that, those who control the data\ncould eventually reshape not only the world\u2019s economic and political future but\nalso the future of life itself. The combination of AI and biotechnology will be\ncritical for any future attempts to redesign bodies, brains, and minds. Elites\nin the United States and China who have access to those technologies could\ndetermine the course of evolution for everyone, according to their particular\nvalues and interests. Abilities they deem useful, such as discipline and rote\nintelligence, might be enhanced at the cost of attributes believed to be\nsuperfluous, such as spirituality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Professor Yuval Harari, cautions us that\nartificial intelligence, biotechnology and ever-sophisticated algorithms are tapping\ninto our values, habits, tastes, desires and the very thought patterns that define us \u2014 all to control how we\nshop, what we read, and whom we vote for. The notion of free will is defunct.\nAnd the grand project of liberalism, with its focus on the individual, is worn\nout. In past generations, when people talked about\nfreedom they mostly meant the freedom to express your feelings and realize your\ndesires. But with the rise of Big Data algorithms, it becomes increasingly easy\nto hack humans, manipulate their feelings and control their desires. It means\nan external system can know you better than you know yourself. It can predict\nyour choices and decisions. It can manipulate your emotions, and it can sell\nyou anything, whether a product or a politician. Previously in history the most\nimportant resource was land. Then it was machines. Now data is the most\nimportant resource. Politics is becoming the struggle to control data, and the\nfuture belongs to those who monopolize the data. One of the biggest political\nquestions of our era is, How do you regulate the ownership of data?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Daya Hewapathirane<\/strong><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr. Daya Hewapathirane In computer science, artificial intelligence\u201d or AI, refers to intelligence demonstrated by machines, in contrast to the natural intelligence displayed by humans and other animals. It is the ability of a computer program or a machine to think and learn. AI is one of the major developments of our time. Machine learning, and the implications that go […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[101],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-99811","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dr-daya-hewapathirane"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99811","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99811"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99811\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99811"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99811"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99811"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}