The technology industry is changing the way that people go about their day. Amazon is popular among those who desire to get products delivered as soon as possible through the help of an app on their phone. Ring is appealing to homeowners who want to keep an extra pair of eyes when no one is home and stores are slowly getting rid of their cashiers to replace them with self-checkout lanes. Through sensors and cameras, humans are getting a glimpse of the future with artificial intelligence (A.I.).
According to builtin.com, a website that gives tech professionals insights into hiring tech companies nationwide, A.I. is a sect of computer science involved with building smart machines that are able to perform tasks in need of human understanding. In other words, A.I. is used to accomplish tasks connected with human beings, created by human beings. The future of A.I. is something to be worried about, as no one knows what its capabilities and limitations are since it is not a human but merely something digitally controlled.
Car companies are constantly releasing their latest models with up-to-date technology and self-driving cars easily draw attention to car buyers. According to the United Nations online news, A.I. will be able to help lessen car crashes by the year 2030 by taking out the reaction speed issues that come with human drivers. When someone is involved in a car accident, they have a split second to decide what to do. Will the driver have enough time to try to get off the road and avoid oncoming traffic? Or choose between hitting an elderly woman crossing the street instead of a school bus carrying children? A.I. will be used to identify road solutions, and regardless of what the outcome is, people will have to pay the price of the aftermath. A.I. will not feel the emotions of the sight of seeing someone getting injured or be held responsible for the accident, meaning that we cannot trust to have people’s lives in its control.
While A.I. will soon take over how cars solve tough road scenarios, it is also making its way into the medical world. At first, it may seem like a wonderful idea for medical professionals to have someone else take care of their continuous tasks. If A.I. is used, it is also likely that it will be exposed to private medical records as stated by the National Library of Medicine. Will the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) not apply to computer robots? After all, a human is in charge of coding for the A.I. to do what it needs to do. It seems to me that HIPAA would also need to be updated and expanded to include A.I. dos and don’ts.
Not only is A.I. going to make an appearance in the medical world but it will also be more visible to those that grocery shop in-store. On Sept. 28 2021, Loss Prevention Media described how A.I. would be beneficial in self-checkout lanes as it would keep track of items that are stolen. The Observer stated that one of the reasons for what has led to self-checkout lanes having cameras equipped with facial recognition technology is due to shoplifters. The Observer says that check-out lanes are able to audit shoppers for unscanned items in places like Walmart. While it may make sense for security measures to be in place for stores that are losing revenue due to shoplifters, it also opens up opportunities for fraud to occur. Identification and passports include images of one’s face and those documents are to retrieve personal information, which is how the government is able to identify people. ITPro states that facial recognition technology includes imagery and video that is stored in a database, but who has access to the database? Are there other security measures that will be implemented within the database? It seems to me that hackers could test the limits and not only break into a retail company’s database, but also get their hands on private records or even personal bank accounts.
At the end of the day, the future of A.I. brings more questions than answers. Not only will cars, the medical world or retail stores be affected by A.I., but humans may one day be replaced. A.I. can make decisions in a split second compared to humans, who take time to decide. It seems like A.I. is slowly and carefully heading in a direction where human intelligence is going to be challenged.
