Make Room AI Has Already Entered The Blog

    The age of artificial intelligence(AI) is a slippery slope and once the line has been crossed it is hard to say society will ever recover. Technology allows the world to connect and appeal to users now more than ever. After watching a PBS documentary about the age of AI, it has become prominent technology has a new prerogative; to monitor, control and sell data.

    To have privacy is a luxury that is as good as gold in today's intrusive world. While watching the documentary I wrote down five words I thought encompass the main key points; advertising, algorithm, money, competition, and power. All five of these words describe what the future of AI will depend on. These words drive how AI is planting itself in our world reaching new heights of disgust, invasion, and hatred. It is sad really, something with the capacity to enhance the world with magnanimous opportunity, instead encroaches on us only for the benefit of a few money-hungry companies. 

    Humans are reaching a point of stagnancy in purpose, and AI is eating up all the data possible. The symbiotic relationship between humans and technology is evolving from mutualism to parasitism. It surprised me to find out companies aren't at a point where enough is enough, honestly the deception and invasion would leave my conscious uneasy. Early investor and advisor to Facebook, Roger McNamee, critiques the unapproved stretch for data. Companies like Facebook are reaching lethal levels of surveillance capitalism. For example, in response to the 2018 Cambridge Analytics scandal, CEO Mark Zuckerberg responded by saying he "will now make data protection a priority". Um yeah, it only took breaching up to 87 million users' data.

    Online security is weaker than ever before. Hackers barely even have to try to find information as if companies are selling it as real estate. Recently debilitating scams have come out about AI maliciously cloning voices and calling gullible parents saying their child has been kidnapped by replaying prerecorded AI-generated audio. It is sad to say that a documentary intended to show the truth, can't help but insinuate some fear-mongering. The truth is scary because people are uneducated and ignore it. Ignorance is bliss until your information is being sold without your consent and every choice you make is predetermined by an advanced artificial intelligence system. 

    It is without question AI is here to stay and the advancements CAN be positive. The resilient story of Alastair Mactaggart, a real estate developer fighting for the right to say no to data mines, gives me hope for an age of productive AI usage. AI has the potential to change direction for the better, on a surface level AI serves a beneficial purpose. Everything is recorded now which makes it easier to catch delinquent behavior, a world with less crime undeniably is safer. Access to boundless knowledge is easier than ever and we can use AI to predict what we are looking for before we even search! AI is accessible, durable, and long-lasting which can make the world move at a faster pace, with the exception of those who lose their job due to AI. The benefits are applicable to a few, and if you end up on the wrong side of things, good luck. 

    This brings me back to the vocabulary words mentioned above; advertising, algorithm, money, competition, and power. Where there are advertisements, there is AI meticulously formulating a perpetual algorithm to appeal to the user. AI is fighting for user's attention and those with money want to have top-tier AI programming to win the everlasting competition for our data that will ultimately lead to achieving the influx of power. The insatiable hunger for power can control people in a way society would have never imagined before the introduction of the internet.