Artificial Intelligence and human beings

Artificial Intelligence and human beings

Artificial Intelligence, the study and engineering of intelligent machines capable of performing the same kinds of functions that characterize human thought. AI programs tend to be highly specialized for a specific task. They are able to play games, predict stock values, interpret photographs, diagnose diseases, plan travel itineraries, translate languages, take dictation, draw analogies, help design complex machinery, teach logic, make jokes, compose music, create drawings, and learn to do tasks better. AI programs perform some of these tasks well. In a famous example, a supercomputer called AlphaGo beat world chess champion Ke Jie in 2017.

Although AI systems are able to model the richness and subtlety of human memory and common sense, many of the mechanisms behind human thought and cognition only to a limited extent. American philosopher John Searle admits that a program might produce replies identical to those of a person, and that a programmed robot might behave exactly like a human. But he argues that a program cannot understand anything it says, but output meaningless symbols that it has manipulated according to purely formal rules. In a word, human brains can ascribe meaning to symbols, deriving understanding, whereas mental and silicon cannot.

Another problem is related to ethics. As AI become smarter and more widespread, autonomous machines are bound to end up making life-or-death decisions in unpredictable situations according to moral principles or ethics. The best-known set of guidelines for robot ethics are “three laws of robotics” coined by Issac Asimov, a science fiction writer. The laws require robots to protect humans, obey orders and preserve themselves.

Unfortunately, the laws are of little use in the real world as computer-controlled machines would encounter more complicated circumstances to make ethical decisions when moving out of the realm of science fiction into the real world. Should a drone fire on a house where a target is known to be hiding, which may also be sheltering civilians? Should a driverless car swerve to avoid pedestrians if that means hitting other vehicles or endangering its occupants? Such questions have led to the emergence of the of the field of “machine ethics”, which aims to give machines the ability to make such choices appropriately, in other words, to tell right from wrong. However, there is a long way to go.

From the foregoing discussion, AI has managed to serve as extensions of our cognition and driven mankind’s progress and we have admit that each new advance has posed troubling new questions. However, if we deal with these challenges positively, they are not external entities or adversaries, but friends amplifying human ingenuity, giving us unimaginable abilities and unlocking our true potential.