Impact of AI on humanity

AI is moving ahead quickly - so quickly that our traditional social institutions may not be able to keep up. Yet, AI promises to be pervasive within just a few years. When you look at how quickly Google has moved into our fact finding space, and how much we rely on it, we can get some sense as to how quickly AI can move.

This will raise some important questions. As humans work more closely with AI constructs, ranging from programs to intelligent robots, eventually those robots will become almost indistinguishable from humans, raising questions as to the rights of the robots, and the rights of humans vis-a-vis the robots. As humans work more closely with AI designed to augment their own capabilities, those capabilities will be vastly overcome by the technological. This will raise questions as to the responsibility for decisions and actions. Reliance on code - which is basically what AI is -  will increase the feasibility of amoral corporations and governments slanting that code to suit their own purposes in pursuing profit and power.

Pew Corp did a study asking some "979 technology pioneers, innovators, developers, business and policy leaders, researchers and activists" to answer these and related questions in a canvassing of experts conducted in the summer of 2018."

They found a variety of concerns, and opportunities for humans, but all agreed that massive change is in the works - with some saying that such change is likely to extend over the next fifty years or more. The change will not come as once, meaning that humans will need to be very responsive in dealing with the change as it comes. But it will come fast, which means that some people will be displaced and left behind. Which in turn means social unrest, more populist uprisings, perhaps dictatorships.

It's a massive challenge calling for restructuring of our social, educational and government institutions. The survival of our society - of humanity as we know it, is at stake. To gain a greater insight into these issues, check out this article on the Pew website.