Technology: Revolutionizing Everyday Life - Essay Sample

Introduction

Technology means the practical use of scientific knowledge to cause change and manipulate the human environment, or rather the manner to perform a specific task using a technical process (Webster, 2019). Technology can also be described as the products or methods used to simplify human life. Technology is used in the accomplishment of many days to day social life processes starting from communication, transport, education, industrial manufacturing, security, business, and many other fields. Technology is dynamic. This means that it is advancing day by day. For years, technology has been moving from an industrial age to the information age. During the industrial age days, large businesses had a better opportunity of expanding their business due to their substantial capital capability compared to small businesses. The current information age is favorable to all companies because the advancement in technology has created an environment that depends on information.

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Technology is a broad study in science and categorized into; communication, construction, assistive, medical, information, entertainment, business, and educational technologies etc. (Ramey, 2019). The advancement of information and communication technology has led to the emergence of Artificial Intelligence, which refers to the simulation of human intelligence by computers and machines. It involves creation of devices that will perform duties and react like humans design to perform tasks like speech recognition, learning, planning, and problem-solving. Artificial Intelligence is either classified into weak AI or strong AI. Weak AI is also known as narrow AI and is associated with systems designed to perform a particular task. Strong AI, also known as general artificial intelligence, is a system with generalized cognitive human capabilities. They can find solutions to unfamiliar functions without any human intervention (Rouse, 2018).

The advancement and use of Artificial Intelligence raise many ethical questions in the human intelligence community like; why should the safety of AI research? How dangerous will AI be to social activities? Why are people so receptive to AI? Are humans supposed to be scared of AI? The following is a case study discussing the examples of AI and the threats, vulnerabilities, attacks, risks, and the countermeasures that would be associated with the adoption of Artificial Intelligence in human day to day life.

The use of Artificial Intelligence was employed many years ago in the 1960s. For example, the Defense Department of the United States of America employed this technology to create programs that were used to mimic basic human reasoning. Later in 2003, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) invented intelligent personal assistants. Today, many more AI programs like Cortana and Apple's Siri have been designed. AI began with the development of a program that beat a human being in playing chess, and this has advanced to today's creation of robot machines. In 1972, an 'intelligent' humanoid robot was created, and it was used to solve mathematical problems and geometrical theorems. In the past years, communication companies like Google and Baidu have adopted machine learning to a significant commercial advantage. Other than just understanding user behavior, these companies have taken machine learning in other programs like computer vision and natural language processing.

There are several types of Artificial intelligence, namely; Reactive machine AI, limited memory AI, the theory of mind AI, self-awareness AI. The reactive machines are, for example, the IBM chess program that was used to beat the world's chess champion, Garry Kasparov. This machine just identified the pieces on the chessboard and make predictions of the next most strategic move. These programs are created for limited situations, and they cannot be easily employed in other circumstances. Secondly, Limited memory AI systems use past experiences to inform the operation of future decisions. Such programs are used in self-driving cars. Theory of mind refers to an understanding that other people have feelings of their own while self-awareness AI works on the principle that these machines have consciousness. The last two types of Artificial Intelligence are not yet in existence (Ray, 2019).

Moreover, there exist several AI systems like automation, machine learning, machine learning, natural language processing, robotics, self-driving cars, and many more. Artificial Intelligence has been applied exclusively in areas like medicine, education, business, finance, law enforcement, manufacturing, and others. In healthcare, AI has been used to develop machines that have the capability of making faster and better diagnostics than humans. In production, industrial robots have been created, which are now used to perform most tasks that used to be completed by humans as they are much fast and efficient.

However, there have been a lot of security and ethical concerns about Artificial Intelligence. Concerns have been raised about whether or not self-driving cars can be hacked. If that happened, it could cause a lot of damage and cost to the state as the system tries to build up countermeasure decisions to reduce the maximum damage caused by accident. Hacker has started using sophisticated AI tools to gain access to unauthorized and susceptible systems, which is likely to cause a rise to the level of cyber insecurity above the current state.

Additionally, audiovisual industry has also raised some alarms where videos are fabricated with public figures doing or saying things that never happened. The creation of autonomous weapons has posed a significant threat to nations and the world. These weapons are purposely designed to kill, and if they fell into the wrong hands or be possibly hacked could cause a global panic. Vladimir Putin, the Russian president, said, "Artificial Intelligence is the future, not only for Russia but for all humanity. It comes with enormous opportunities, but also threats that are difficult to predict. Whoever becomes the leader in this sphere will become the ruler of the world." In case an organization is hacked, and it's data exposed to the public, the organization will undergo a reputation risk as people would eventually lose trust in the organization.

Furthermore, invasion of privacy is also a threat that has been posed by AI. Surveillance cameras nowadays control the world, and this makes it possible to track a person in their daily businesses. AI makes it more accessible by the development of facial recognition software to know exactly who a person is. This technology is, for example, used in China, and it would give its citizens a score based on how they behave. This would be a great source of social oppression. Another limitation of Artificial intelligence is that these machines don't know what they don't know (Parmenter, 2018). For example, the doorbell system locked a man out of his home just because he was wearing a batman's shirt, and the doorbell doesn't recognize batman. The situation shows a significant lack of knowledge by the AI systems because they don't understand all concepts of data despite the ability to process large amounts of the data.

While the use of Artificial Intelligence is being adopted in almost every business in the world today, it remains a significant threat to unestablished small companies that are lacking enough funds to install these systems as they can't keep up with the competition from the large organizations. Still, the technology remains a threat to the human workforce as many laborers are being replaced by machines in manufacturing industries and thus creating joblessness. Even though AI is cutting costs in business organizations, it still comes with other expenses like; these businesses have to retrain their staff on working with these machines and adapting to the new environment. It also takes an organization a lot of its precious time trying to install these AI systems depending on how sophisticated they are and a lot more other costs in installing new upgrades that are being released in the global market almost every other day.

A right combination of this high Artificial Intelligence technology with other computer systems would bring a considerable increase in the production and profits to the manufacturing industries as well as other areas that use the technology. This will only be achieved if the use of Artificial Intelligence is regulated only to the appropriate purpose. Regulation commonly means a sustained attempt to monitor the behavior of others according to the higher goal. Organizations should put into place security structures that ensure the security of its data, and others come up with plan models of what could be done to contain a security breach in case of any. The AI systems can be as well be installed with features that can detect a malfunction or misinformation and defend itself against it. Organizations that use AI in large scales should team up and form a board that will be responsible for information sharing and also acts as a security board of trained experts to be dealing with any malfunction of these machines.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it can be well noted that human beings have put into good use of the previous technology upgrades, and it can only be hoped that this will be the same case in the use of Artificial Intelligence.

References

Webster (2019). Retrieved from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/technology

Ramey, K. (2019). Retrieved from https://www.useoftechnology.com/what-is-technology/

Rouse, M. (2018). Retrieved from https://searchenterpriseai.techtarget.com/definition/AI-Artificial-Intelligence

Ray S. (2019). Retrieved from https://towardsdatascience.com/history-of-ai-484a86fc16ef