Artificial Intelligence Vs Humanity: Why we should think about the threat of Artificial Intelligence?

Artificial Intelligence is definitely a touchy subject for the human race. The very mention of the term conjures up images of apocalyptic societies where intelligent super-computers have either enslaved the human race or eradicated the inferior species altogether. For some, the connotation of "artificial intelligence" attacks the very core of the human spirit, the pride of our race. The very thought of an "intelligent" computer that is on par, or more likely superior, to our own brain sends chills down the spine.
Are these concerns realistic? Or are they unfounded worries of people who don't understand the issue? Some proponents of artificial intelligence insist that such concerns are the result of semantic misunderstanding.
By definition, Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the area of computer science focusing on creating machines that can engage on behaviors that humans consider intelligent ("Artificial Intelligence”, Herzfeld Noreen). The ability to create intelligent machines has intrigued humans since ancient times and today with the advent of the computer and 50 years of research into AI programming techniques, the dream of smart machines is becoming a reality (Nonlinear Science and Complexity, M. Marques). Researchers are creating systems which can mimic human thought, understand speech, beat the best human chess player, and countless other feats never before possible.
The next paragraphs will be focused on the history of Artificial Intelligence, from the idea to its concept. The aspects and application of AI will be analyzed, as well as its pro and cons.
Artificial intelligence has been around for longer then most people think. We all think that artificial intelligence has been in research for about 20 years or so. In all actuality after thousands of years of fantasy, the appearance of the digital computer, with its native, human-like ability to process symbols, made it seem that the myth of the man-made intelligence would finally become reality. (About AI, website)
The history of artificial intelligence all started in the 3rd century BC. Chinese engineer Mo Ti created mechanical birds, dragons, and warriors. Technology was being used to transform myth into reality. (University at Buffalo, Computer Science and Engineering).
Much later, mechanical ducks and humanoid figures, crafted by clockmakers, endlessly amused the Royal courts of the Enlightenment-age Europe. It has long been possible to make machines that looked and moved in human-like ways.
Machines that could spook and awe the audience but creating a model of the mind, in that day in time were off limits.
However, writers and artists were not bound by the limits of science in exploring extra-human intelligence, and the Jewish myth of the Golem, and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, along with that movie and other old ones gave us new ideas for other AI movies, but the point being it gave us new - and troubling - versions of the manufactured humanoid (AITopics, Brief).
Between these engineers and authors, the world's philosophers were seeking to encode the laws of human thought into complex, logical systems. In the 1600s, engineering and philosophy began a slow merger, which continues today (Network and Servers: The future of AI, website). The mathematician, Blaise Pascal, created a mechanical calculator in 1642 (to enable gambling predictions). Another mathematician, Gottfried Wilhelm von Leibniz, improved Pascal's machine and made his own contribution to the philosophy of reasoning by proposing an easier way by making an equation (Pascal’s Inventions, Blaise Pascal).
Many of the leading thinkers of the 18th and 19th century were convinced that a formal reasoning system, based on a kind of mathematics, could encode all human thought and be used to solve every sort of problem. Thomas Jefferson, for example, was sure that such a system existed, and only needed to be discovered (Formal Reasoning and Language Understanding system, Raymond Reiter). The idea still exists today, the history of recent artificial intelligence is full with stories of systems that seek to explain logic inside computers.
From 1800 on, the philosophy of reason picked up speed. George Boole proposed a system of "laws of thought," Boolean Logic, which uses "AND" and "OR" and "NOT" to establish how ideas and objects relate to each other. Most Internet search engines use Boolean logic in their searches; you can say that you want all the pages about "wakeboarding NOT (tubing OR skiing)" to find all the pages about wakeboarding which don't mention anything about tubing and skiing (The Laws of Thought, Boole).
In the early part of the 20th century, multidisciplinary interests began converge on AI. Engineers began to view brain synapses as mechanistic constructs. "Cybernetics," the study of communication and control in biological and mechanical systems, became a well-known word. Claude Shannon pioneered a theory of information, explaining how information was created and how it might be encoded and compressed (Focus, Stanley Rowin). Vannevar Bush's wrote an essay predicting that networks around the world could be linked. For 1945 this was huge stuff, and looked now we have networks linked up the ying-yang (As we May Think, Vannevar Bush).
The beginnings of modern AI can be traced to classical philosophers' attempts to describe human thinking as a symbolic system. But the field of AI wasn't formally founded until 1956, at a conference at Dartmouth College, in Hanover, New Hampshire, where the term "artificial intelligence" was coined. (Dartmouth News Press Release, March 13, 2006)
MIT cognitive scientist Marvin Minsky and others who attended the conference were extremely optimistic about AI's future. "Within a generation [...] the problem of creating 'artificial intelligence' will substantially be solved," Minsky is quoted as saying in the book "AI: The Tumultuous Search for Artificial Intelligence. (Basic Books, 1994).
But achieving an artificially intelligent being wasn't so simple. After several reports criticizing progress in AI, government funding and interest in the field dropped off a period from 1974 -80 that became known as the "AI winter” (AI is So Hot, We’ve Forgotten All About the AI Winter, Daniel Faggella). The field later revived in the 1980s when the British government started funding it again in part to compete with efforts by the Japanese.
The field experienced another major winter from 1987 to 1993, coinciding with the collapse of the market for some of the early general-purpose computers, and reduced government funding.
But research began to pick up again after that, and in 1997, IBM's Deep Blue became the first computer to beat a chess champion when it defeated Russian grandmaster Garry Kasparov (IBM, website).
And in 2011, the computer giant's question-answering system Watson won the quiz show "Jeopardy!" by beating reigning champions Brad Rutter and Ken Jennings.
This year, the talking computer "chatbot" Eugene Goostman captured headlines for tricking judges into thinking he was real skin-and-blood human during a Turing test, a competition developed by British mathematician and computer scientist Alan Turing in 1950 as a way to assess whether a machine is intelligent. (Robotics, Margaret Rouse)
But the accomplishment has been controversial, with artificial intelligence experts saying that only a third of the judges were fooled, and pointing out that the bot was able to dodge some questions by claiming it was an adolescent who spoke English as a second language.
Many experts now believe the Turing test isn't a good measure of artificial intelligence (The Conversation, Kevin Krob).
"The vast majority of people in AI who've thought about the matter, for the most part, think it’s a very poor test, because it only looks at external behavior," (Perlis, Live Science).
In fact, some scientists now plan to develop an updated version of the test. But the field of AI has become much broader than just the pursuit of true, humanlike intelligence. (Artificial Intelligence, Life Science)
The probable applications of Artificial Intelligence are plenty. Application of AI is possible in all fields, requiring intelligent analysis, precision and automation. They stretch from the military to the entertainment industry, to big establishments dealing with large amount of information such as banks, hospital and insurances (Application of artificial Intelligence, Wikipedia). AI can also be used to predict customer behavior and detect the trends. There are many general fields where AI can be very usefully utilized for Autonomous planning and Scheduling, Autonomous Control, Medical Diagnosis, Logistics Planning, and Language Understanding, Problem Solving, Game Playing.
Artificial intelligence can help alleviate the difficulties faced by man but intelligent machines can never be human.
Intelligence is best defined as the ability of an individual to adapt his/her behavior to new circumstances (Artificial Intelligence, Manali Oak). Human intelligence is not a single ability but is rather a composition of abilities like learning, reasoning, problem solving, perception, and understanding of language.
So is the human intelligence more sophisticated than the artificial intelligence?
When it come to analyze the potential of AI we have to take in consideration all the the pros and cons of this technology.
On the pros side we can definitely said that with artificial intelligence, the chances of error are almost null and greater precision and accuracy is achieved.
One of the great advantage of Artificial intelligence is its applications in space exploration. Intelligent robots can be used to explore space. They are machines and hence have the ability to endure the hostile environment of the interplanetary space. They can be made to adapt in such a way that planetary atmospheres do not affect their physical state and functioning. Intelligent robots can be programmed to reach the Earth's nadirs. They can be used to dig for fuels. They can be used for mining purposes. The intelligence of machines can be harnessed for exploring the depths of oceans. These machines can be of use in overcoming the limitations that humans have. More and more we see the use of robots who replace human beings in many areas of work. Robots can do certain laborious tasks. Painstaking activities, which have long been carried out by humans can be taken over by the robots. Owing to the intelligence programmed in them, the machines can shoulder greater responsibilities and can be programmed to manage themselves (Buzzle, Manali Oak). There are now millions of robots working in factories around the world, assembling everything from cars to electric appliances to defense equipment and performing hazardous and precision jobs.
Another great example of the applications of Artificial Intelligence are Smartphones. In utilities like predicting what a user is going to type and correcting human errors in spelling, machine intelligence is at work. Applications like Siri that act as personal assistants, GPS and Maps applications that give users the best or the shortest routes to take as well as the traffic and time estimates to reach there, use artificial intelligence. Applications on phones or computers that predict user actions and also make recommendations that suit user choice, are applications of AI. Thus, we see that artificial intelligence has made daily life a lot easier (Buzzle, Manali Oak).
Emotions that often intercept rational thinking of a human being are not a hindrance for artificial thinkers. Lacking the emotional side, robots can think logically and take the right decisions. Sentiments are associated with moods that affect human efficiency. This is not the case with machines with artificial intelligence

Artificial intelligence can be utilized in carrying out repetitive and time-consuming tasks efficiently. AI can be employed to do certain dangerous tasks. They can adjust their parameters such as their speed and time, and be made to act quickly, unaffected by factors that affect humans.
When we play a computer game or operate a computer-controlled bot, we are in fact interacting with artificial intelligence. In a game where the computer plays as our opponent, it is with the help of AI that the machine plans the game moves in response to ours. Thus, gaming is among the most common examples of the advantages of artificial intelligence (Pros and Cons, Mike Fekety).
AI is at work in the medical field too. Algorithms can help the doctors assess patients and their health risks. It can help them know the side effects that various medicines can have. Surgery simulators use machine intelligence in training medical professionals. AI can be used to simulate brain functioning, and thus prove useful in the diagnosis and treatment of neurological problems. As in case of any other field, repetitive or time-consuming tasks can be managed through the application of artificial intelligence.
Finally, but probably one of the greatest advantage of artificial intelligence is that machines do not require sleep or breaks, and are able to function without stopping. They can continuously perform the same task without getting bored or tired. When employed to carry out dangerous tasks, the risk to human health and safety is reduced.
It seems that artificial Intelligence is probably the best choice as it alleviates all the heavy task and duties that we usually do. Maybe it is, but we have also to take in consideration all the possible disadvantages and threat that AI can bring in our society.
One of the main disadvantages of artificial intelligence is the cost incurred in the maintenance and repair. Programs need to be updated to suit the changing requirements, and machines need to be made smarter. In case of a breakdown, the cost of repair may be very high. Procedures to restore lost code or data may be time-consuming and costly. (Advantages and Disadvantages of using robots, website).
An important concern regarding the application of artificial intelligence is about ethics and moral values. Is it ethically correct to create replicas of human beings? Do our moral values allow us to recreate intelligence? Intelligence is a gift of nature. It may not be right to install it into a machine to make it work for our benefit.
Machines may be able to store enormous amounts of data, but the storage, access, and retrieval is not as effective as in case of the human brain. They may be able to perform repetitive tasks for long, but they do not get better with experience, like humans do. They are not able to act any different from what they are programmed to do. Though this is mostly seen as an advantage, it may work the other way, when a situation demands one to act in way different from the usual. Machines may not be as efficient as humans in altering their responses depending on the changing situations. (Better than Humans: Why the will take our jobs, website).
The idea of machines replacing human beings sounds wonderful. It appears to save us from all the pain. But is it really so exciting? Ideas like working wholeheartedly, with a sense of belonging, and with dedication have no existence in the world of artificial intelligence. Imagine robots working in hospitals. Do you picture them showing the care and concern that humans would? Due you think online assistants (avatars) can give the kind of service that a human being would? Concepts such as care, understanding, and togetherness cannot be understood by machines, which is why, how much ever intelligent they become, they will always lack the human touch.
If robots begin to replace humans in every field, it will eventually lead to unemployment. People will be left with nothing to do. So much empty time may result in its destructive use. Thinking machines will govern all the fields and populate the positions that humans occupy, leaving thousands of people jobless. (Living with artificial Intelligence, website).
Also, due to the reduced need to use their intelligence, lateral thinking and multitasking abilities of humans may diminish. With so much assistance from machines, if humans do not need to use their thinking abilities, these abilities will gradually decline. With the heavy application of artificial intelligence, humans may become overly dependent on machines, losing their mental capacities. (Buzzle, website)
If the control of machines goes in the wrong hands, it may cause destruction. Machines won't think before acting. Thus, they may be programmed to do the wrong things, or for mass destruction.
Apart from all these cons of AI, there is a fear of robots superseding humans. Ideally, human beings should continue to be the masters of machines. However, if things turn the other way round, the world will turn into chaos. Intelligent machines may prove to be smarter than us, they might enslave us and start ruling the world.
AI began as an attempt to answer some of the most fundamental questions about human existence by understanding the nature of intelligence, but it has grown into a scientific and technological field affecting many aspects of military, commerce and society.
It should be understood that artificial intelligence has several pros but it has its disadvantages as well. Its benefits and risks should be carefully weighed before employing it for human convenience. Or, in the greed to play God, man may destroy himself. (Pros and Cons, Buzzle).