AI - Good, Bad, & Ugly
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The Good, Bad, and Ugly of AI
AI is one of the most powerful tools humans have ever built, and like any powerful tool, it can help or hurt depending on how we use it. The good: AI can speed up medical breakthroughs, explain tough ideas in ways that finally click, and take boring tasks off our plates so we have more time to create. The bad: AI learns from human data, so it can pick up our worst habits, like bias and unfairness, and spread them faster and wider than any one person ever could. The ugly: some of the world's smartest people worry that if we build AI carelessly, we could lose control of it altogether. None of this is decided yet. The future of AI depends on the choices people make, and that includes you.
The Good
"AI is the new electricity."
Andrew Ng, computer scientist and co-founder of Coursera and Google Brain
Ng made this comparison in a 2017 talk at Stanford. His point: artificial intelligence already powers many online interactions, but it's only a small fraction of what will soon be possible. Just like electricity once changed farming, factories, and communication, he said he had a hard time thinking of an industry AI won't transform in the next several years.
The Bad
"Algorithmic bias, like human bias, results in unfairness."
Joy Buolamwini, MIT researcher and founder of the Algorithmic Justice League
In her TEDx talk, Buolamwini warned that algorithms, like viruses, can spread bias on a massive scale at a rapid pace. She discovered this firsthand when she tested facial recognition systems from top tech companies, and they repeatedly mistook the faces of famous Black women like Sojourner Truth, Michelle Obama, and Oprah Winfrey for men.
The Ugly
"The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race."
Stephen Hawking, physicist
Hawking said this to BBC News in 2014. His fear was that humans, limited by slow biological evolution, couldn't compete with advanced AI and would be superseded. Despite his grim predictions, Hawking said he remained an optimist that things could be done to build a better future.