Inquiry Paper

Artificial Intelligence is something that just about everyone is familiar with, whether it be

from movies or from an actual academic source. Weve all seen The Terminator and I,

Robot and weve all used Alexa or Siri. What most people dont think about though, is

where will AI and Robotics go next? and what will their impacts be on humanity as a

whole?. AI is one of the most sophisticated and incredible accomplishments of our time and

continues to improve and become smarter every day. Researchers and scientists work day and

night creating new and improved versions of AI which has many people worried. They worry

about the possible creation of Artificial Super Intelligence, which is a fear that many of the

greatest minds in the world share. Others believe that we can prevent this or that it isnt even

possible to create and if it is created that we can control it. Through research, this paper will

determine that the positive impacts cannot outway the possible negative impacts that Artificial

Intelligence and robotics can have on humanity.

There are basically three ways of looking at Artificial Intelligence and its possibilities

in the future. There is the negative look that I explained briefly, there is the positive outlook

which basically is the idea that AI and Robotics can be controlled no matter what and will do

nothing but improve humanity and make life easier. Then there is the mixed view that AI is

dangerous but can be used to improve the lives of humans if closely regulated and monitored.

Not all people feel as though AI is such a terrible beast and that it is in fact something

that can be used to further humanity. There are two viewpoints that look at AI from a positive

angle. There are short-term, positive outlooks and there are long-term, positive outlooks and they

tend to differ slightly. Both are very relevant and reasonable views on the future role of AI and
technology related to it. According to Kevin Maney, journalist at Newsweek, automation and AI

have already reshaped our economic system and made a step towards evolving humanity. It isnt

necessarily a physical or individual evolution as much as a social and economical evolution. He

uses the automated gas-delivering robot, introduced in 1964, as an example of a way

technology has already changed society.

Automation in the petroleum industry was a phenomenal transition with rippling

effects across the United States. Self-serve pumps didnt catch on until the 1970s, when pump-

makers added automation that let customers pay at the pump, and over the next 30 years, stations

across the nation installed these task-specific robots and fired attendants. By the 2000s, the gas

attendant job had all but disappeared. ( Maney). Though hundreds of thousands of gas pump

attendants lost their jobs, the transition opened new opportunities in dozens of different fields.

Attendants went away, but to make the sophisticated pumps, companies like Wayne Fueling

Systems in Texas, Bennett Pump Co. in Michigan and Gilbarco Veeder-Root in North Carolina

hired software coders, engineers, sales staff and project managers. Station owners took their

extra profits and turned their stations into mini-marts, which needed clerks, and built more gas

stations, which needed more pumps from Wayne, Bennett or Gilbarco, and those companies then

hired more people. Consumers spent less money on gas because they werent paying for

someone else to pump it. That left them more money for iPhones or fish tacos ordered on

Seamless, creating more new kinds of employment. (Maney). Inevitably, technology will lead

society to make higher education a requirement due to the lack of low-end, minimum wage, and

blue-collar jobs. Truck drivers, bartenders, cashiers, librarians, and many more like them will

soon be replaced by Artificially Intelligent Robots that will save companies money. Those
people that are let go will either scrape up some other job that hasnt been replaced or will gain

education and an experience that will lead them into a higher-paying field that cant be replaced.

Some people dont look that far in the future though and think strictly about the

possibilities of AI right now. Qian Li, Postdoctoral Researcher at University of Oxford, believes

that robots can do the dirty work for humans. Obviously, robots are less fragile and valuable

than humans and they are capable of finishing a variety of difficult and challenging tasks that

humans cannot complete. They can work in deep water, extreme weather and harsh

environmental conditions, essential in clean tech industries such as offshore wind, where robots

are performing subsea inspections, and dangerous clean-up operations like the radioactive

Chernobyl nuclear site. ( Li). Li looks at things from a more ecological standpoint rather than an

economical standpoint which would indirectly benefit humanity by helping to sustain the world

we live in. We are already seeing people use robotics for ocean cleanup but we can only imagine

what would happen if we enhanced those machines with AI that could basically learn as it went.

Jillian Richardson, a writer for Intel IQ, looks at the short term possibilities as well but

less on the ecological side and more on the social side. She explains how AI can help with the

work of doctors, farmers, and rescue workers by assisting them throughout their day-to-days. She

starts off her article talking about the negative possibilities which are referenced earlier and then

goes into how it could help farmers. One of AIs greatest impacts could be in food production

an industry challenged by a rapidly growing world population, competition for natural

resources and plateauing agricultural productivity. ( Richardson). This is a critical part of the

US economy and civilization as a whole and the rising population of the world and decreasing

number of farmers will lead to an absolute necessity for AI and Robotics in agriculture.
 She then talks about how AI will help detect cancers and help first responders keep our

children safe from predators. Cancer is a frightening diagnosis, impacting 1.65 million people in

the U.S. in 2015. Waiting for biopsy results can be stressful, but AI may help accelerate the

diagnosis and treatment process. ( Richardson). The possibilities for AI in healthcare are

endless and cancer is just the tip of the iceberg for the future of this technology. People are now

able to speak to a virtual doctor from home and physicians are helped by virtual assistants

increasing their productivity. Medical facilities are now using AI in phone apps to relay results in

an understandable way to their patients and AI is being used in phones to help pick up emotions

to possibly combat depression and anxiety. Not only that but AI is also being used to help with

the treatment of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in veterans.

Gillian goes on to talk about the first responder possibilities, NCMEC can scan sites

for suspicious content, store massive volumes of data, run a variety of queries and share the data

across the organizations applications. And AI helps automate and speed up the process.

(Richardson). This is something that is appealing to just about every person in the civilized world

as keeping our children safe is the top priority of any parent. If we can cut back or even totally

stop online predators using AI than we should use any tools possible.

The negative outlook on things is the most interesting because it is shared by many of

the greatest minds in the world including Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, and Steve Wozniak.

They are terrified at the idea of Artificial Intelligence developing consciousness and the

possibility of Super Intelligence. Sometimes what will happen is a scientist will get so

engrossed in their work that they dont really realize the ramifications of what theyre doing.

(Musk, at the world government summit in Dubai). This is the concern of many others as well,

Musk is not alone in his questioning of the possibilities of AI. Many are worried that people with
good intentions will create something that cannot be controlled due to a desire better their

creation to aid humanity.

Stephen Hawking has said We dont know how to control superintelligent machines.,

which is indicative of his, and many others, biggest fear with AI which is the development of

uncontrollable, Artificial superintelligence or even the creation of consciousness. Theyll

become self-protective and seek resources to better achieve their goals. Theyll fight us to

survive, and they wont want to be turned off. (I.J. Good), an English mathematician in the

1960s, who was worried about the creation of AI and the advance of AI to the point that they

became independent and conscious which would inevitably lead to them setting goals and

seeking resources.

Bianca Nogrady, a freelance science journalist, wrote an article on BBC.com that

talked about how another fear of ours should be our growing reliance on AI. She fears that we

could be setting ourselves up for failure and disaster by relying so heavily on machines and

technology that could easily fail. Rather than worrying about a future AI takeover, the real risk

is that we can put too much trust in the smart systems we are building. (Nogrady). She talks

about how A system is only as good as the data it learns from. meaning that, as of right now,

systems are only as flawless as humans in that humans are what they are learning from. By

relying too heavily on AI and robotics we could lead ourselves into some major disasters from

technology messing up somewhere that we dont notice right away.

Artificial Intelligence and Robotics will have a mix of good and bad impacts on the

human race. Many believe that AI can make life incredibly easy by virtually doing the work of

humanity for us. Unfortunately, there are other, negative, impacts that are both possible and

inevitable and could have terrible effects on humanity and civilization. AI has an endless number
of possibilities for helping humanity but the possibilities to help humanity could drive people to

create and create without any thought about the consequences. If we want to further explore AI

and robotics we have to create, monitor, and enforce rules and regulations for the industry so as

to prevent any possible disasters that could be created by this incredible technology.

Citations

Barrat, James. Why Stephen Hawking and Bill Gates Are Terrified of Artificial

Intelligence. The Huffington Post, TheHuffingtonPost.com, 9 Apr. 2015,

www.huffingtonpost.com/james-barrat/hawking-gates-artificial-intelligence_b_7008706.html.
 How AI Is Transforming Healthcare and Solving Problems in 2017. Healthcare IT

News, 18 Oct. 2017, www.healthcareitnews.com/slideshow/how-ai-transforming-healthcare-

and-solving-problems-2017?page=13.

Li, Qian. The Positive Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Sustainability.

Linkedin.com, 23 May 2017, www.linkedin.com/pulse/positive-impact-artificial-intelligence-jan-

qian-li/.

Maney, Kevin. You will love the future economy, thanks to robots and AI.

Newsweek, 5 Dec. 2016,www.newsweek.com/2016/12/09/robot-economy-artificial-intelligence-

jobs-happy-ending-526467.html.

Nogrady, Bianca. Future - The real risks of artificial intelligence. BBC, BBC, 10

Nov. 2016, www.bbc.com/future/story/20161110-the-real-risks-of-artificial-intelligence.

Three Ways Artificial Intelligence is Good for Society. IQ by Intel, 25 Sept. 2017,

iq.intel.com/artificial-intelligence-is-good-for-society/.