This article has been written by Abhishek Ray pursuing a Training Program on How to Use Generative AI for Career Growth for Senior Professionals from Skill Arbitrage.

This article has been edited and published by Shashwat Kaushik.

Introduction

The concept of artificial intelligence truly became significant to a luddite like me, a regular Indian, only with the onset of the recent pandemic. With so much lazy time to sit around at home, there were a lot of attempts at reading and gaining knowledge from my end. With the virtual offices concept coming in it was a sort of an eye opener to me, how much disruption can technology cause. However, artificial intelligence has been there or rather, has been born and is growing, since 1956. Interestingly, the history of AI began with stories, rumours, and folktales of  master craftsmen creating artificially intelligent beings by gifting them with consciousness and brainpower. 

Download Now

During the 1990s, AI had already solved multiple problems like data mining, speech recognition, industrial robotics and our very own Google. However, it received little or no credit as it came under the gigantic umbrella of the subject we know as computer science. We may say that artificial intelligence was still not in sight of the big marketing guns of the world and thus these achievements were not labelled as AI.

And now that we can say that artificial intelligence is very much here to stay, it would not be a waste of time to imagine what the future would be like. For starters, picture this : In the near future, the swiggy delivery boy will be replaced by a Drone hovering outside your window at any skyfloor you might be in. The drone delivers your piping hot Chinese food and, in no time, vanishes. The service is super efficient, a little pricier (technical cost ) and, of course, hassle free. In this scenario, would you miss the human touch of the delivery boy and the occasional pleasant doorstep human to human conversation? Would you miss the basic satisfaction of the rating of the delivery boy, as the DRONE would give a shit about your service rating? Reflect upon this scenario and consider the potential impact on the delivery boy’s job and its broader implications as he makes his living from this job.

A peek into the future

Being a father is definitely one of the most powerful emotions that we experience in our lifetime and by God’s grace, I am one too. I never gave a serious thought to a responsible, research based approach to see how my future would be. Certainly, I had aspirations centred around owning a couple of cars, enjoying holidays, having a corporate career and having a relaxed family life, and that was it. But as a father, trying to gaze into the future of my son became an unintentional habit. The desire to anticipate and carve the way for his journey naturally became a part of my daily reflections. What would the world look like in 30 years? What skills would be obsolete? What skills would flourish? And this quest brought a non tech savvy guy like me face to face with the subject of artificial intelligence. The whole point of me writing this article is not to provide you with a picture of what the future will be with artificial intelligence and how it will impact our lives, because that’s impossible. Rather, the idea is to make more and more of Mom and Pop’s alert and aware and to think of how artificial intelligence will affect the future.

So let’s ignite!

As far as my memory goes back to my days of academia in the recent past, we have been taught that humans are the smartest animals who have lived and survived on mother earth. We, as a race, have been enormously successful to the extent that we virtually control this planet. We have been responsible for getting several animal species extinct. We have the knowledge and the tools to revive long gone species using several de-extinction techniques at our disposal. We have abused natural resources and nature to the point that we are already witnessing the effects of global warming. Now we have the power to use renewable energy to further our ambitions. As if Mother Earth were not enough, now we are eyeing other planetary bodies to expand. How do we do this? What’s so special about humans that has helped them achieve so much? To put it in the most simplistic manner, it’s our cognitive abilities combined with the ability to process information. The neurons in human brains are wired primarily for the 3 things- Power, Money and sex. These neurons with special abilities and a non relenting focus on the three things have led this human race to hegemony. 

With artificial intelligence, it may happen that this human supremacy will be challenged if not entirely transferred to machines. And that is frightening. Now let’s look at a human-less economy scenario. Let’s say there is a corporation named Klabus Mining Inc. that uses robots to mine iron and directly sells iron to another named Tedbas Corp., which manufactures robots and sells them to Klabus Mining Inc. Imagine how much both companies save from running an entire human resources department with no annual appraisal, which in any case does not achieve 100% employee satisfaction. They save a huge amount of money by not having departments like ethics and corporate governance, finance, sales, etc. There are no marketing budgets to factor in, no post retirement benefit funds, and no employee engagement costs. Their bottom lines will be growing exponentially for, god knows, how many years.

Where humans fail

At a basic level, artificial intelligence is the science that gives machines or robots the ability to work like humans. We already have a sea of virtual assistants on our mobile phones, getting more and more real with every upgrade. It started with the basic assistance of “call Mom” to read me the news headlines. But now that they have the ability to know and suggest what news you would like to listen to, they can create a tailor made song playlist for you based on your listening habits and mood. Imagine Siri saying tomorrow, “I think you should call your ex girlfriend” Will that not be too much of a privacy breach by a machine. 

Applications help us to be productive and manage our time well, but what we need to answer is what will humans be productive in and what will they do with the time saved when everything will be done by machines. Junk foods and television gave us obesity; this tsunami of applications will give us redundancy. In my pursuit to find the answer to this question and to the best of my ability, I have made my brain tread into many aspects of life that may be affected by the overpowering of AI, but I don’t intend to put all those in my article and act as an AI for you. Rather, I hope that this article ignites your thought process and makes you contemplate the effects, good or bad, of AI on our future. Just think, will your profession, be it singing, teaching, selling, etc., exist in the future? Do you have any moats that cannot be breached by artificial intelligence? Just to add onto an interesting piece of information for you, AI has long ago mastered some of the most intelligent games in the world. A Google chess playing application mastered the game in just four hours. Can you beat that?

A few months ago, in the flood of WhatsApp forwards, I came across one that hinted towards the effects of artificial intelligence on human privacy. It is said that our phones and applications are marketed as our virtual assistants or productivity enhancing tools, which save us time on tasks that, if done the old fashioned way, would take a lot of time and energy. Say, for example, that your online payment apps make payments for your holidays, dinners, and insurance for your regular online purchases. While doing that, they gather a lot of your intimate and private preferences. It’s up to us to decide how much of our personal lives we want to share and what impact it’ll have on the future.

From what I have understood, humans are losing it to artificial intelligence, apart from the fact that the speed of processing is twofold. The first one is interconnectivity. Take a very basic example of a couple. No matter how blissful their relationship may be, they can never be absolutely connected and synchronised at a mental level. It may happen that both of them are worried about one possible immediate problem they are facing but their connectedness ends there. Because after that point of singular connectedness, individual neuron networks will be processing separate emotions, different levels of intellect, and different ways of approaching the problem. These differences, in spite of them tackling the same issue, will not keep them in sync or connected. On the other hand, computers can be connected to such a level of perfection that they will store the same information, process it with the same set of algorithms and process it at the same speed. They will never pose a threat to each other in terms of emotional conflict and avoid wrecking the desired result.

The second one is upgradability. All or for that matter, even a few humans cannot be downloaded or upgraded with a new set of information at the same time, with the exact level of accuracy desired. Let’s take, for example, a finance class where students are being taught the basic concepts of accounts. At no point in time will they absorb the same level of information being provided to them. That’s why there  are toppers, mediocres and failures in our education system. At the end of the class, all of them will leave with a varied level of knowledge of the concepts they have acquired. To add to the problem, the ability to save the information gained will vary to such an extent that a significant number of students will start forgetting the concepts by the time their break between classes is over. Had they all been artificially intelligent, all it would have taken was for the teacher to press the enter button and the job would have been done.

As far as my memory goes back to my days of academia in the recent past, we have been taught that humans are the smartest animals who have lived and survived on Mother Earth. We, as a race, have been enormously successful to the extent that we virtually control this planet. We have been responsible for getting several animal species extinct. We have the knowledge and the tools to revive long gone species using several de-extinction techniques at our disposal. We have abused natural resources and nature to the point that we are already witnessing the effects of global warming. Now we have the power to use renewable energy to further our ambitions. As if Mother Earth were not enough, now we are eyeing other planetary bodies to expand. How do we do this? What’s so special about humans that has helped them achieve so much? To put it in the most simplistic manner, it’s our cognitive abilities combined with the ability to process information. The neurons in human brains are wired primarily for three things- power, money and sex. These neurons with special abilities and a non relenting focus on the three things have led this human race to hegemony. 

With artificial intelligence, it may so happen that this human supremacy will be challenged if not entirely transferred to the machines. And that is frightening. Now let’s look at a human-less economy scenario. Let’s say there is a corporation named Klabus Mining Inc. that uses robots to mine iron and directly sells iron to another named Tedbas Corp. that manufactures robots and sells them to Klabus Mining Inc. Imagine how much both companies save from running an entire human resources department with no annual appraisal, which in any case does not achieve 100% employee satisfaction. They save a huge amount of money by not having departments like ethics and corporate governance, finance, sales, etc. There are no marketing budgets to factor in, no post retirement benefit funds, and no employee engagement costs. Their bottom lines will be growing exponentially for, god knows, how many years?

And these two  problems with humans lead me to think of another human less economic scenario. The airline industry, which is primarily a service sales industry, is also one of the prime business sectors of today and involves a lot of human capital. Once the ticket is booked online, it’s primarily human capital that drives this business. Pilots, ground personnel, on air staff, security personnel, air traffic managers and so on. Pilots need to be upgraded with every minute change in aircraft, which is not only expensive but time consuming, considering the hours required for the training and the risk of the pilot joining another airline. All air and ground staff need constant training to achieve desired customer satisfaction on departures, and arrival and so on. Air traffic managers need to upgrade with each technological change and work on a zero margin of error, considering what calamities can happen due to human error. Security check personnel need upgrades, even more so with terrorists and illegal traffickers relentless search to find new means and use of technology to get their evil jobs done. You must already be bored with my usage of the word upgrade, but know that this scenario is only a miniscule portion of how such a complex industry runs. So moving ahead to visualise this human less economy, let’s replace all the humans with auto upgradable and interconnected machines running this complex industry’s day to day operations. You walk into the airport, flashing your online ticket at a scanner. A facial recognition system checks its database and discounts you as a possible threat based on your past records. Your luggage is auto scanned, while a robot porter helps you with the same without asking for or expecting any tips. You pass through an extremely high tech scanner to get to the airline door. You pick up your pre allotted meal while moving towards your allotted seat. Once seated, you may hear an artificially intelligent voice with visual monitoring announcing the passengers to kindly take their seats, followed by a door closing announcement and basic flight information like flight travel time, weather, etc. Another voice introduces him/herself as your autopilot, which will ensure a smooth and safe flight, so sit back and relax. One deeply imbibed culture Indians have is the itch to deboard the plane most of the time with a hunchback stand that begins even before the flight has stopped taxing. Another latest issue that has come in is the peeing adventure embarked on by a few free drink guzzlers. All of these issues lead to discomfort for the fellow passengers and, needless to say, the inflight staff. With a human less operation, all that is needed is a robot present in the flight to handle these uncultured, insensitive and sometimes shameful acts performed by us humans. The mere presence of a robot as an in -flight bouncer will share the shit out of the pee offender and make him hold his drink. In this scenario, humans will be restricted to buyers only and that is indeed frightening. All the jobs in such an important and growing industry have gone just like that, not only unaffected but gone for good from the airline companies point of view.

These scenarios presented lead to a very dark and terrifying future, a future where humans become redundant. Is it so? Is this so simple? The human race’s supremacy for billions and billions of years is gone, just like that! This question leads us to the next part of the article and that is, where and how do humans have an edge, if any?

The initial portrayal of my opposition to new technology might have led you to perceive this article as harbouring an anti technological sentiment. However, this inclination is outweighed by the potent emotion of fatherhood, which has led me to try to visualise a future intertwined with artificial intelligence. With a pragmatic approach, it becomes extremely crucial that we scrutinise our human attributes, which will serve as the foundation of our relevance and survival in this new technological era.

A beacon for the future

First and foremost, humans have an edge due to their physical dexterity. To illustrate, consider the ability to play a guitar. Playing guitar involves intricate and coordinated movements of the hands and fingers. Our hands, arms and fingers have evolved in such a way that we are able to play guitar by  natural means of balancing between the extremes of delicate and robust grips. This special ability of ours aligns with the principle of natural selection, reinforcing our adaptability and survival in different environments.

Second is the crucial aspect of our ability to adapt. The human race has not only survived but thrived by adapting to various harsh environments for many centuries. Why we look different and have different eating habits is mainly based on which part of the world our ancestors belonged to. Today, armed with expanding scientific know-how and its practical applications, we will most surely adapt and thrive in a wide array of global settings.

The third advantage that humans have is their social nature. We collaborate, forge alliances, thrive and build on our combined strengths. This trait helps political parties with diverse perspectives come together for effective governance. This advantage helps build resilient nations capable of facing global challenges and emerging superiorities. Our social nature is a powerful catalyst that has helped us grow. You can think of any notable success story, be it in any field from science to technology to art, and you will find a narrative of individuals pooling their strengths, experience and knowledge. It would inadvertently have a collaboration of people behind it.

The initial portrayal of my opposition to new technology might have led you to perceive this article as harbouring an anti technological sentiment. However, this inclination is outweighed by the potent emotion of fatherhood, which has led me to try to visualise a future intertwined with artificial intelligence. With a pragmatic approach, it becomes extremely crucial that we scrutinise our human attributes, which will serve as the foundation of our relevance and survival in this new technological era.

The fourth advantage is curiosity. This advantage is the starting point of all inventions and this is the key to finding a way to not only co-exist with artificial intelligence but to reap its benefits by customising it. It was curiosity that led humans centuries ago to invent fire and since then, this advantage has led humans to cross milestones after milestones. Even today, in this generation of startups, it’s curiosity that leads to problem solving that’s finally monetized.

The fifth is empathy. It is our unique attribute of responding to and understanding others’ mental states. This quality has been the foundation upon which the intricate tapestry of a civilised society is woven. It has helped us in our collective well being and progress through the centuries. It plays a pivotal role in fostering collaboration and strengthening relations between individuals.

It is with these advantages that we shall carve our place on this earth in the future. These traits are the key differentiators that strengthen our arsenal to secure our importance and relevance, as they have always been. From the point of view of jobs, these attributes will be a core part of future job descriptions.

Accountability for the way forward                   

Humans have been exceptionally good with inventions but at the same time, they have been very bad in using these inventions wisely. Greed in humans has led to the mishandling of the marvels invented. Nuclear energy is a boon to our race and we all know what Armageddon can bring upon us if used otherwise. We have invented a way to harness solar energy, which is again a great invention and will help us achieve our zero carbon goals. But are we responsibly planning for an effective way of recycling or disposing of the solar cells or have we already started creating our next big environmental issue, which would be solar garbage everywhere? While we never voted for the internet, we quickly embraced it and understood its benefit in terms of opening up an infinite source of information to us, but it also brought a lot of bad influence upon society, be it the easy availability of pornographic contents to virtual gaming applications to the latest addition to the list being deep fakes. Whether or not artificial intelligence will overpower humans, take away jobs or be our next major milestone of success entirely depends on us. The world as a whole, nations , governing authorities and every individual would be the deciding factors of our future. There should be dedicated and strict laws pertaining to artificial intelligence and its uses. Laws should be kept in mind and respect human privacy. Governing bodies need to create laws that will not only manage the associated risks but also promote artificial intelligence and its applications. The corporations that deploy artificial intelligence need to be held accountable for the risks that artificial intelligence may create.

So while I presented you all with some dark scenarios of a human-less economy, the advantages that we have as a race will be the key to how we shape our future coexistence with artificial intelligence. Our curiosity and adaptive traits should be directed towards engineering and solving the problem we are standing face to face with. The education sector in today’s world needs to evolve quickly to impart future generations with the right tools and knowledge to be able to forge a long lasting and beneficial future. I think that a future as presented in the much loved franchise of Terminator movies, where humans become the underdog in the war with Skynet’s intelligence network, is not possible. However, humans must restrict and control artificial intelligence to the extent that the human race does not become redundant.

References

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

LEAVE A REPLY

Please enter your comment!
Please enter your name here