Artificial Intelligence and The Future of Humanity Artificial intelligence is the human-like intelligence demonstrated by machines and man made software. The artificial intelligence field is interdisciplinary meaning that it combines two or more academic disciplines or fields of study, in which a number and professions mesh together, including computer science, psychology, linguistics, philosophy and neuroscience, as well as other specialized fields such as artificial psychology. Major artificial intelligence researchers and textbooks define this field as the study and design of intelligent agents, where as an intelligence agent is a system that checks out its environment and takes the necessary actions that maximizes the chances of success(Artificial Intelligence, A.G. Cohn, R. Dechter). Now, this person John McCarthy, who coined the term in 1955, defined it as the science and engineering of making intelligent machines. Artificial intelligence research is very highly technical and specialized, and is deeply divided into sub fields that usually often fail to communicate with each other. Some of the division is due to social and cultural factors meaning that it will or will not function because of our multicultural race. Some sub fields have grown up around particular institutions and the work of individual researchers. Artificial intelligence research is also divided by several technical issues. Some sub fields focus on the solution of specific problems. Others focus on one of several possible approaches or on the use of a particular tool or towards the accomplishment of particular applications(Artificial Intelligence, A.G. Cohn, R. Dechter).The central problems, or goals of AI research include reasoning, knowledge, planning, learning, communication, perception and the ability to move and manipulate objects. General artificial intelligence or strong artificial intelligence is still among the field's long term goals. Currently, the popular approaches include statistical methods, computational intelligence and traditional artificial intelligence. There are an enormous number of tools used in artificial intelligence, including versions of search and mathematical optimization, logic and methods based on probability and economics. There are many positive outcomes in our society can result with the use of artificial intelligence. Increased production and costs have already been witnessed in factories and production lines. Jobs better suited for computers have showed that there are less errors and have a lot more efficiency. One example of this is detecting credit card fraud. American Express has developed an "Authorization Assistant" that uses artificial intelligence to determine whether a purchase is out of character for a card member. Meaning that there was something odd that didn't look right. This system will determine and send an email to the owner of the card and confirm it for himself. This is more accurate and efficient than having the trouble to call the owner and this way it saves time and effort(Implications: why create AI's. Sher Marc 2003). This is just one of the many and infinite other possibilities exist for using artificial intelligence to increase efficiency and save time and effort. Artificial intelligence is also being pursued to replace humans in dangerous situations. Not only can they withstand radioactive elements but they also work better in places where there is confined space and little oxygen to breathe. This replacement will eliminate unwarranted deaths due to potential accidents and unsafe conditions. Another important area that artificial intelligence is projected to improve the concerning issues about the lives of the elderly. Because of the demand for adults to be fully involved in their work, the care for the elderly at home has sizzled out. Now the numbers in needing nurse care has risen. The desire for these individuals to be independent can no longer be met and the elderly will have to live in a nursing home. Artificially intelligent robots are an attempt to fix this problem. If a spouse passes away, the widowed spouse, while perhaps not fully independent, may no longer have to seek help in a nursing home. Now a robot can oversee the individual and help with tasks too difficult for the person on their own. As a whole, society will begin to change(Implications: why create AI's. Sher Marc 2003). Menial tasks done by humans will no longer need attention and time can be spent doing more constructive things. The systems run by artificial intelligence will be more accurate then ever, thereby increasing the level of trust in making certain decisions. Lives can be lived more fully. Perhaps years from now people will look back, much like individuals today look back at progress, and ponder how unnecessarily difficult their lives used to be(Implications: why create AI's. Sher Marc 2003). Affective computing is the study and development of systems and devices that can recognize, interpret, process, and simulate human affects. It is an interdisciplinary field spanning computer sciences, psychology, and cognitive science. While the origins of the field may be traced as far back as to early philosophical inquiries into emotion, the more modern branch of computer science originated with Rosalind Picard's 1995 paper on affective computing. A motivation for the research is the ability to simulate empathy. The machine should interpret the emotional state of humans and adapt its behavior to them, giving an appropriate response for those emotions. Emotion and social skills play two roles for an intelligent agent(Implications: why create AI's. Sher Marc 2003).. First, it must be able to predict the actions of others, by understanding their motives and emotional states. (This involves elements of game theory, decision theory, as well as the ability to model human emotions and the perceptual skills to detect emotions.) Also, in an effort to facilitate human-computer interaction, an intelligent machine might want to be able to display emotion even if it does not actually experience them itself in order to appear sensitive to the emotional dynamics of human interaction(Implications: why create AI's. Sher Marc 2003). The next topic is about Japan and their own version of artificial intelligence involving transportation. Nissan Motors is demonstrating and showing for the first time, its groundbreaking driver-less car technology at CEATEC, being held near Chiba Prefecture in Japan. The car will be driving around a predetermined route through the city streets and will also demonstrate the intelligence to find a parking spot(Nissan shows off driver less car technology at CEATEC, Ida Torres). The Nissan Leaf will be the vehicle to do the demonstration, and it's equipped with their autonomous driving technology that was created for urban driving. The car itself has five laser scanners and five cameras that lets it understand the surroundings of the car while the artificial intelligence is the one that is tasked to read the movements of other cars and then rely on its knowledge base on how to appropriately respond to the situation and move along accordingly within Japan's driving laws. During the CEATEC event, Nissan will let a car be used with a human driver, as well as the Nissan Leaf will go through the route and when they encounter each other, they will show how the artificial intelligence can work in making decisions. Nissan received the first official license plate from the Japanese government to be able to test the car on actual roads in the country. They are aiming to release the car and its advanced driver assist system to the market by the year 2020(Nissan shows off driver-less car technology at CEATEC, Ida Torres). Now I could keep on going on about Japan's take on artificial intelligence, but I won't. Anyways this is just a glimpse of what is to come. Japan has created a ton of AI's in these past five years, they created programs to beat professional chess players. Created robots that move and adapt to our surroundings. Another prime example of artificial intelligence and what it can affect our lives in the future is the AI in medicine. The decision support systems don't need to be “stand alone'”but can be integrated into an electronic medical record system. This integration reduces the known barriers to using this system, by creating them more relatively into clinical working processes, rather than expecting workers to create new processes to use them. The HELP system is an example of this type of knowledge-based hospital information system, which began operation in 1980. It not only supports the routine applications of a hospital information system (HIS) including management of admissions and discharges and order entry, but also provides a decision support function. The decision support system has been actively incorporated into the functions of the routine HIS applications. Decision support provide clinicians with alerts and reminders, data interpretation and patient diagnosis facilities, patient management suggestions and clinical protocols. Activation of the decision support is provided within the applications but can also be triggered automatically as clinical data is entered into the patient's computerized medical records. In general terms, the AI in medicine is what helps us know what is going on with out bodies and it helps us decide what is not right and what is right. Meaning that what is properly function correctly and what isn't. AI can also be adapted for war. The US government is creating an unmanned aircraft that is capable of aerial combat. The US Air Force published its thinking on UAS development, “Unmanned Aircraft Systems Flight Plan 2009-2047”. The most interesting thing about this document was that its vision of a networked family of UAS. Drones that would be built around common airframes of differing size incorporating a modular design, an “open-architecture” approach so they could be as flexible as possible. The medium-sized successors to today's Reaper would be able to do more things, from defending airspace against enemy intrusion to attacking enemy air defenses and does all the tasks that the F-35 has been designed to undertake. The largest UAS would operate as an airborne warning and aircraft control (AWACs), aerial refueling tankers, strategic lift transports and long-range bombers(Unmanned Aerial Warfare: Flight of the Drones, The Economist). The UAS Flight Plan assumes that the next generation of drones will have artificial intelligence giving them a high degree of operational quick thinking, including if legal and ethical questions can be resolved, meaning the ability to shoot to kill. But what about the next step? Does it follow that an unmanned aircraft should be allowed to fire a weapon based entirely on its own analysis? In my own opinion, yes they should. The British Ministry of Defense suggests the answer is “perhaps”. In a thoughtful document on the British approach to UAS earlier this year, the ministry's Development, Concepts and Doctrine Center argued that if the controlling system addressed the principles of the law on armed conflicts (military necessity, humanity, proportionality and the ability to distinguish between military targets and civilians) and if the rules of engagement were satisfied, then an armed strike would meet legal norms(Unmanned Aerial Warfare: Flight of the Drones, The Economist). However, it goes on to say that the software testing and certification of such a system would be expensive and difficult. And decisions about what is proportionate often require fine decision making and as well as sophisticated judgments. The authors say this “As technology matures and new capabilities appear, policymakers will need to be aware of the potential legal issues and take advice at a very early stage of any new system's procurement cycle.” David Deptula, a retired general who was until recently in charge of the US Air Force's intelligence and surveillance operations agrees. He recently told Jane's Defense Weekly that “Technologically, we can take artificial intelligence pretty far, but it won't be technology that is the limiting factor, it will be policy.” The Air Force's chief scientist, Mark Maybury, points out that there will be an almost infinite combination of contingencies facing drones. Designing systems that to make sure they will respond in a safe and effective way may take a decade or more. Evangelists for drones concur that even when there is no longer “a man in the loop” piloting a UAS directly, it will still probably be necessary to have human operators “on the loop” monitoring and intervening(Unmanned Aerial Warfare: Flight of the Drones, The Economist). The ethical problems do not end just there. There may be nothing in the laws of war saying combatants must be willing to put themselves in harm's way, but some find creepy that the idea of a UAS pilot stationed in Nevada driving home for supper with the family a few hours after killing dozens of people in Pakistan. The strange detachment of drone warfare has given people close to the receiving end of drone attacks some successful in depicting America's use of them as the cowardly form of action of a bully sheltering behind a superior technology. Looking farther ahead, there are fears that UAS and other robotized killing machines will so lower the political threshold for fighting that an essential element of restraint will be removed. Robert E. Lee said “it is well that war is so terrible, otherwise we would grow too fond of it.”(Unmanned Aerial Warfare: Flight of the Drones, The Economist) Drones might make leaders fonder of war. More obstacles may also slow the rise of UAS. Peter Singer, director of the 21st Century Defense Initiative at the Brookings Institution, a think tank in Washington, DC, says that at a time of falling defense spending, UAS procurement and development may lack allies against powerful and conservative constituencies. These include skeptical military bureaucrats, fast-jet pilots, and members of Congress fighting to preserve traditional weapons programmed and the jobs that go with them. But as Mr Singer concluded in a recent article in the Armed Forces Journal: “Tough budgetary environments, first generation limits and reliance on the ‘proven' are often crucial barriers to change, but history also shows they can't prevent the future from happening.” Two years ago, Mr Gates conceded that the F-35 would probably be the last manned strike fighter. It may take longer than the visionaries think, but the pilot in the cockpit is already an endangered species(Unmanned Aerial Warfare: Flight of the Drones, The Economist). To conclude, artificial intelligence in the 90's is centered around improving conditions for humans. But is that the only goal in the future? Research is focusing on building human-like robots. This is because scientists are interested in human intelligence and are fascinated by trying to copy it. If A.I. machines can be capable of doing tasks originally done by humans, then the role of humans will change. Robots have already begun to replace factory workers. They are acting as surgeons, pilots, astronauts, and more. As AI becomes more advanced, may believe they will lead humanity to a golden utopia while others fear that it will be the death of the human race.

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