Gold Award participant Sama takes us on a journey into the amazing world of AI…
We live in a society that is changing day by day, we can barely keep up with the fast pace of the world around us. One of the astronomical changes occurring at this very second is the development of technology. Technological development has been occurring for a while now and it’s time we started acknowledging it for its capabilities and benefits as well as the issues it raises.
We are using technology more and more in our daily lives due to necessity (e.g. to help us cook and clean) and of course as a source of entertainment. It is slowly making our lives easier by the day but what happens when it reaches the point where life becomes a bit too easy for us?
A man named Robin Winsor believes that all this new technology brings us advantages but also great disruption. He uses the phrase ‘you can’t put the genie back in the bottle’ and was referring to AI once it has reached the point of no return. He also continues to talk about Artificial General Intelligence which is a form of technology that may develop and become our norm- we would feel like we were living with another life form. They will start completing tasks we found too difficult to do or they may do things that we do but they can do better. They will reach a point where they understand us more than we understand ourselves and they will become so much smarter than us. This will lead to so much, including the loss of many jobs and therefore unemployment. Some people believe that AI will take over the old jobs and allow humans to explore and work on newer jobs however, as aforementioned, AI can catch up to us much faster than we think and can soon learn to do those new jobs better than ourselves. This sudden change will leave people who are preparing for certain jobs for years, unemployed as their occupation wouldn’t be required and can be fulfilled by AI. Robert Winsor additionally gave an example of the division and pricing of labour. If this is done by machines in the future, it will destroy capitalism. There will only be a small number of extremely rich people who own the AI and resources and the majority of the population will be poor. There will be massive inequality. This is why Winsor thinks that we should create an environment prepared to embrace and take in AI rather than an environment where AI will take over us.
An example where this change Winsor wants to see is occurring today is with a man named Dr. Jordan Nguyen who has similar beliefs to Winsor and that we are moving into a technology dominated world. He himself has already been creating technology that will aid us for the better. For example, he has created a smart wheelchair that allows the wheelchair to be controlled through the human mind. It has embedded robotics and AI and has cameras that act as human eyes to project images into the third dimension.
Dr. Nguyen is also passionate about the developing society in a sense that technological advancements can be manufactured to change the way we perceive things and feel things. Not only that, but he is looking to use technology to preserve the people we cherish, revisit our past selves and create memories that aren’t in real life but are stored in the virtual reality world.
As a teen and as someone who hasn’t had time to study the advancing society as much as the two men mentioned above, I feel like we are being led to change faster than we can imagine. We should keep, as Winsor said, finding ways as the next generation to embrace AI when it comes. Try to keep it in control, and allow it to help us but not take us over.
Sama is a Year 10 student studying at the British School Muscat in Oman, She is working towards her YSA Gold Award.
