Quote of TRUTH: “Real stupidity beats artificial intelligence every time” – Terry Pratchett
Over the past years, technology has seemed to advance faster than we could have ever imagined, especially comparing to the Paleolithic times (where all our ancestors had invented were cave paintings and fire pits, which is, by the way, still very awesome to invent). We’ve gone from having our first light bulb flicker into existence then next self-driving cars, like Tesla. Mind-blown, I know, feelings are mutual. But, now, we’re going to talk about something that isn’t common in most places (for now, or so we think), Artificial Intelligence.
1. They’re starting to camouflage with everyone else around them
What I mean by this is that they are starting to look super realistic! We have almost mastered the art of forming technology into such human-looking-like figures. To tell you the truth it is a little bit creepy. One example of this would be Yangyang, a robot which has been created. The features that were given to her have made her an almost replica of Sarah Palin!
Sarah Palin isn’t the only one out there. There’s also Sophia and Nadine. Sophia is pretty well-known as she has been on a couple of interviews. She has even met Will Smith, and she’s actually the first robot to receive a citizenship. Nadine, on the hand, is an AI who works as a university receptionist. She was described as the “world’s most human-like robot”. Aside from looking human, these robots are able to interact as such, too. Nadine has the capability to smile, make eye contact, greet visitors, and even recognize past guests. What happens when you can’t tell artificial intelligence from an actual living and breathing human being? Imagine, just imagine, someone decides to change the entire Madame Tussaud, a wax museum (by the way, people already get confused by whether the wax figures are real or not), into AIs. Just thinking about it gives me the chills.
2. They are taking over our jobs
This problem is something that we’ve got to keep in mind. We’ve created these machines to do all these tasks and finish all these jobs for us. Yet, we somehow seem to be distracted from the fact that this would be very unfortunate for so many families and people out there.
It is estimated that 73 million U.S. jobs would be taken over by robots and automated by 2030. Yes, I actually mean millions. So for every job operated by automation, that’s another job lost for someone or their family. But here’s the wildest thing, the estimate for 73 million jobs lost is just in the U.S. alone. Looking at the bigger picture, a new report claims that, worldwide, an astonishing amount of 800 million jobs would be lost due to automation.
3. ROBOT DOGS!
You read that right. Robot. Dogs. How cool does that sound? Very much, I agree. Having a robot dog eliminates most of the migraines that you would normally get from a normal dog as it wouldn’t have to do his “business”, everywhere, if you know what I mean. The two main things that you wouldn’t have to worry about anymore would be the robot dog’s health and its hygiene.
Sony has actually announced that they would be releasing their robot dog. With a price of $2,899, they have made major improvements such as adding touch sensors for when you pet it, facial recognition for it to know its owners, a camera mapping which it uses to memorize your house’s layout, and it even has voice commands!
4. They are able to teach themselves
Yup, self-taught. The advancement of the technology that has been put in their system has actually allowed them to teach themselves. They no longer need us humans to put more information for them, they can learn what they want to learn. Remember the AI robot I told you about earlier, Sophia? Well, according to the supposed first photographer who stepped inside the Hong King-based Hanson Robotics, Sophia might have self-taught herself what a camera was.
Another example of this would be the AI system that Google has made which taught itself to play Atari 2600 games. A study funded by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), showed that their program for their robot was capable of watching videos on how kitchen utensils work and able to properly copy what it saw without any humans to help them out. They even said that by 2029, because of AI increase of knowledge, they would have the same intelligence as us humans.
5. They Can Heal Themselves
The algorithm based on trial and error is what the robot uses to check its system and repair itself. The researcher’s idea is that the robot would act something like an animal and adapt to being broken as they “learn and iterate based on self-reflection”. They have been able to successfully adapt a method similar to this to AI.
Another way that robots were designed to heal themselves was by what material they were made out of. What roboticists did was create soft robots. Soft robots work by heating itself for about 40 minutes at a temperature of 80°C, then after a day when the temperature is at 25°C, the robot would restore after its damages.
6. They’re Being Weaponized
An amount reaching $2 billion dollars is said to be spent alone for AI systems in weaponry. One of the main reasons why the Pentagon and the U.S. military wants to invest this much for their weapons is to stay ahead of other countries around and be more advanced. Even though this would be helpful for an increase in security, there are still dangers that come along with it. The machines that are given the power to control their own actions may put the lives of innocent people at risk, as well.
7. Romantic Relations and AI?
Once our fellow AIs roam the earth and we can’t seem to tell if they’re human or not, there’s a high chance that most people (as in human beings) would have some type of relationship with an AI. Whether it’s romantic or not, the more we put in research and push for these robots to be made, it’s going to be inevitable to not have some contact with one AI or two. There are actually a couple of movies out there that show a glimpse of what people predict the futuristic love life of most to be, such as, Her or Ex-Machina.
According to the report of Dr. Ian Pearson, he says that “by 2050, human-on-robot sex will be more common than human-on-human sex”. Eventually, this idea would be so casual yet looking at it now just seems a bit weird. It looks as if we’re all planning to slowly steer away from humanity and merge as one with technology.
8. They’re Being Taught To Deceive
Claiming for military purposes, a research conducted at the Georgia Institute of Technology by Professor Ronal Arkin and his team have successfully implemented this deceptive behavior into a robot. Professor Arkin and his team first tested out this deceiving behavior with squirrels and birds and when they got the results they also were able to do it with robots.
This is definitely something remarkable yet scary. Even though we are programming this for when they are out at war or during some military business, they can also use these skills if they go rogue. And, how dangerous might that be? Very dangerous, very much indeed.
9. They’re Getting Good at Gaming
These artificial intelligence machines are becoming better and beating us at our own games. Literally. These are the very games that we’ve created. The games that only a small percentage of us have actually mastered after the years of practice. It’s all fun and games until it’s not. Right?
There is an artificial intelligence division within Google that is known as DeepMind. The advancement of AI has shown impressive results. They’ve been able to successfully beat our best players at chess, Go, and even Jeopardy using the skill sets that they now acquire.
One of the more famous cases would be google’s AlphaGo computer program designed to play the game Go. This game is something you’d really have to put your brain power to use as proper strategic planning is needed in order to win. And, here’s the craziest part, after just a couple of hours of training this program was able to defeat the world’s best player.
10. They May Possibly Take Over the World
Taking into account all the great progress we’ve done for both the advancement and improvement of Artificial Intelligence is truly remarkable. However, there have been expressed concerns by some of the best minds out there that going through with AI research and development may lead to our ultimate doom.
Stephen Hawking has said that AI is pretty much spelling the end of our human race. Bill Gates is very worried and knows that AI going to pose as a threat to humans. Elon Musk(LINK 20) has thrown concern and warning after warning that continuing on this path to develop AI is dangerous and even compares it to “summoning the devil”.
Artificial Intelligence has already learned to lie, self-study, create, destroy, fight, self-heal, and even think for themselves. We can’t tell the future. We can’t say for sure right now whether this would be the best thing or the worst thing to happen to us. But, what we do know is that our decisions daily to proceed with AI developments is going to affect what happens to us later on. And one day we may have an AI apocalypse but also we might not.
This is our future we’re talking about. Are we willing to risk it all? Hmmm….
spread your awesomeness!
Yours truly,
L.O.A.S.H
© Elizabeth Anne Villoria
Life of a Secret Homeschooler | A.K.A | L.O.A.S.H 