The Future Of Artificial Intelligence: AI vs. humans

It is no longer news that this era has been greeted with astronomical growth in the evolution of complex AI. But this revolution is just getting started. This is partly reiterating the comment made by one of the foremost proponents of AI.

"... The advancement we have seen in AI is only a blazing edge of the anticipated revolution". - Dr Mateja Jamnik. Source [paraphrased by me] 

On the other hand, humans have been seen to grow alongside these AIs, which has made for an efficient adaptability to the dictates of emerging technology.

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The journey so far

Since the coining of the term "Artificial Intelligence" by John McCarthy in the year 1955, it has been the topic of debate ever since; and one of them is to create machines that would simulate the cognitive abilities of humans. That is what gave rise to the Neural links, Machine learning, and Augmented machine Learning (AML).

There's a fact I would want to buttress before I continue. Maybe this would convince some of the opponents of AI to see this from the flip side.

The amount of data generated by humans on a daily basis increases on an exabyte scale. And because of the limited computational capabilities of humans to keep us with such data processing, an alternative was sought in AI, and this has no doubt effected one of the required changes.

However, this is just for data processing, but we all know that AI can do more now, and would be programmed to do more in the future. Talking of programming; before now, computer systems were pre-programmed to perform specific tasks, which have made them to rely on the information inputted into the system to perform tasks. But now, with the advent of Machine Learning, AI can now use systematic reviews of previous data to make predictions, and draw inferences of the likely outcome of events (just like humans); not to talk about the multitasking abilities embedded into them.

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Bridging the gap between humans and AI

There is no disproving to the fact that humankind has been enhanced by these AIs, even though Artificial Intelligence is still in its infancy stage. I know some would have reservations because I used the world "infancy". The reason is not far-fetched.

The AI we have majorly seen is more like a "learning machine", which draws inferences from experiences. But the world of AI is moving to a point where AIs would "think" autonomously, without prior cognizance of any available data. When this is achieved, AI would have surpassed the human capabilities.

According to Jose Hernandez-Orallo

We are in the verge of building AI system that would fill the gaps which humans may not be able to reach... AI that can think in a non-human way. - Jose Hernandez-Orallo. Source {paraphrased by me]

Over-dependency on AI?

Someone could ask: "Would our existence be absolutely dependent on AI?"

Let me start by making a quick reference to the witty remark made by the Director of Leverhulme Center for the Future of Intelligence; CFI:

Machine capabilities are growing... Dr Stephen Cave

Now, if this is the fact, then permit me to draw some inferences from this. The first being that; machines are now designed to perform tasks that would be almost impossible for humans to perform, with speed and accuracy.

And we all know that human abilities are limited. That means, in order to boost up the limited abilities of humans, AI would come in handy. Did I make a point? If you don't think so, let's look at the comment by an AI expert:

Everything is tilting to the direction where AI would augment human abilities and performance. Dr Mateja Jamnik [Paraphrased by me]

No wonder why we have seen AI out-perform humans in various aspects. And each step we take in advancing the technology of AI is drawing us closer to the point where our human existence could be dependent on these AIs.

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The future of AI

Drawing inference from the systematic reviews of the evolution of AI, you would infer that we are getting to a point in history, where the abilities of AI would edge-out the best of humankind.

In the immediate past; and up to this era, scientists have been able to simulate one very vital aspect of humans in machines; and this aspect is in "intelligence"; but what about other aspects like emotions, and other efferent functions?

Well, in the words of Jose Hernandez:

I have the belief that the future AI would be better than humans; not just in speed, but in other cognitive abilities that are non human-like. - Jose Hernandez-Ozallo. Source {paraphrased by me].

I remember what @anarchyhasnogods once said in our steemSTEM chat some weeks ago; which could be a reiteration of the above statement. He said, and I quip:

"... Machines would be better than humans... @anarchyhasnogods [paraphrased by me]

Believe me, we are sitting on the edge of a major revolution in the world of AI, and the effect of this would be felt in the human community. But, in my opinion, we should flow with the trail. Remember, no one can stop technological revolution; but can only stop himself from partaking of this revolution.

We should all brace up for impact.

Thanks for reading

References for further reading: Ref1, Ref2, Ref3, Ref4, Ref5

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