Year of AI - Let's learn to live with it
Technology
Sooner or later, we are going to live in a highly automated and mechanical world
By Mudassar Ali Iqbal
The world is in a flux. Revolution after revolution is the unwritten constitution of the world, and today it seems obvious that we are observing the revolution of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Sooner or later, we are going to live in a highly automated and mechanical world. The world’s history has been divided into many ages like Stone Age, Bronze Age, and Iron Age. The current age is the age of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
AI is demonstration of human-like cognitive capabilities by machines. Bill Gates, former CEO of Microsoft, called the development of AI the biggest breakthrough in the world of technology.
AI has revolutionised the modern world. Robots, General Purpose Technologies (GPTs), AI Chatbots, AI-driven weapons, Unmanned Vehicles (UVs) which were once seen in the Sci-fi visuals are now the realities of our world.
2024 - THE YEAR OF AI
The University of Texas rightly declared 2024 ‘the year of AI’ while securing half a billion dollar investment from the National Science Foundation (NSF) for research in various initiatives of AI.
2024 has been a pivotal year for development of AI. Many new concepts in the field of AI became a reality this year.
Also Read: How smartphones powered AI boom in 2024
Agentic AI, Generative AI, Quantum AI, and Emotional AI are some of the latest developments in the field of AI in 2024.
AGENTIC AI
Agentic AI gained prominence in 2024; an AI-driven machine that can work and act autonomously is called Agentic AI.
These models do not only act as Chat-bots, they do take dictations from users but then they can perform accordingly on their own. They can book flights, order foods, set alarms, and can manage schedule.
QUANTUM AI
Another remarkable development in field of AI in 2024 is Quantum AI, a miraculous form of computer. Quantum AI is millions of times faster than traditional AI.
It can solve those problems in just few seconds which traditional AI cannot solve in many years.
EMOTIONAL AI
As the advancement continued in the field of AI, developers crossed another milestone in 2024 by laying the foundation of Emotional AI.
A machine that can sense heat, cold, happiness and grief in humans surrounding it and can act accordingly is Emotional AI.
SILICON VALLEY GIANTS
Heated competition between the giants of Silicon Valley including Google, OpenAI, Nvidia, Perplexity, Meta and Microsoft continued this year too. No doubt, the crown of our most favourite search engine, the Google, is about to fall soon.
Read More: You can now call up ChatGPT for conversation
In 2024, companies that developed technologies introduced AI-incorporated search engines like SearchGPT of OpenAI, Perplexity AI and Bing of Microsoft. They are the search engines that generate answers of a query in the form of a processed chat.
To counter this Google also incorporated AI search tools in its search engine, but the competition is the battle of survival.
This claim can be understood from the fact that OpenAI’s revenue grew from $300M to $3.7B in 2024 - a 17,00pc growth in a single year. Similarly, Nvidia, a hardware provider to AI tech companies, saw an epic growth of 193pc in its market capitalisation of 3 trillion in 2024 alone.
BANKRUPTCIES OF TECH START-UPS
Companies, who were unable to innovate with the rapid advancement in 2024, went bankrupt also.
Babylon Health, Tally, CrowdStrike are those AI tech companies who rose and fell from billion dollars to bankruptcy in 2024.
GENERATIVE AI, HYPER-REALITY
Generative AI also improved substantially in 2024. AI is now able to generate hyper-realistic content. It has narrowed the line between real and AI-generated content.
The New York Times filed a case against OpenAI this year as its GPT model was generating content which seemed plagiarised and later on it was found that OpenAI trained its AI Chat-bot over the articles of NYT.
The astonishing fact was that GPT was able to access the premium and paid content itself through its genius prompts.
VEHICLES WITHOUT MAN
Furthermore, AI-driven autonomous cars, robots, assistants, and even lethal weapons have been introduced now. US Navy has a whole fleet of AI-driven unmanned ships, unmanned drones and unmanned war planes that can perform their tasks with zero human intervention thousands of miles away from their command centre.
Writers in their write-ups, scientists in their labs, judges in their courts, strategists in wars; are taking help from AI.
It would be worthy to mention that currently AI as a field is in its infancy, it is getting developed and it will get unimaginably far while developing constantly at flashing speed.
ADVANCING AI BUT FADING HUMANITY
Certain ethical, moral and political questions do arise on such a rapid advancement of AI which authorities and tech giants must address before it is too late. Although European Union (EU) passed an act to regulate AI, a stagnant legislation like traditional ones will not meet the purpose.
AI was made for the help of humanity. It better analyses facts and figures. It processes and memorises vast amount of data in seconds. It can be trained and modified according to the user’s needs. But with this mechanical advancement humanity is fading.
AI has changed the course of action of every aspect of life. AI automation has increased the manufacturing capacity manifold. The use of AI has changed the ways of election campaigns. With the help of AI 7th generation warfare has been introduced.
AI is also taking away the intellectual growth of humans. The habit of reading is declining. Educational system is undergoing an unprecedented change.
ChatGPT CRISIS
Increased use of ChatGPT is a recent manifestation of this phenomenon. Students are using AI-generated answers in their daily school work and assignments. Teachers at schools and universities are calling it ‘ChatGPT Crisis’.
Give it a command and it will respond. Ask it to write an essay, to provide any information, to write a poetic piece, to generate a picture or video, it will follow execute them in few seconds.
This practice is stunting the growth of human minds and intellect. A student working on a research paper can ask AI assistant to read 50 books and summarise them for him. As AI permeates classrooms the role of teachers will be changing from instructors to guides.
Are we are really heading towards an inhuman world where teachers, artists, chefs, writers, and producers would be replaced by Artificial Intelligence (AI)?
The work that labourers and engineers used to do is now being replaced by AI-driven robots. Waiters in world-class hotels are being replaced by AI assistants. AI-driven taxis and vehicles are replacing hardworking drivers.
A JOBLESS FUTURE
Dr Carl Frey, an economist and Michael Osborne, a professor of machine learning, both from the University of Oxford, said that at least 40 per cent of current jobs would be lost to automation by 2050.
Countless people are heading towards an unemployed future. According to the International Labour Organisation (ILO) the global unemployment rate is 5.2pc in 2024 and world with 40pc lost jobs to automation will increase uncertainty, poverty and ultimately crimes.
Despite all these facts, AI has been continuously growing and developing every day.
A lack of governance and transparency makes AI more dangerous. If AI algorithms are used in biased and malicious manner, they can prove disastrous towards society.
AI IN POLITICS
Political wings of different parties across the globe are utilising AI in their campaigns. They are using AI-generated videos or Deepfakes to spread propaganda against their rivals.
This trend pollutes the public opinion. Even in the US presidential elections of 2024 the campaigners used AI to support their respective candidates.
But world leaders, tech giants and also general public should also beware of an uncontrolled AI. It should be kept in mind that by relying too much on AI, humans are making their own bodies and minds weak and agile.
EMBRACE AI OR UNPLUG COMPUTER
If AI will get powerful enough to have its own independent will, it will be far difficult for humans to ensure the security of not only single country or nation but whole globe.
Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google, while speaking about the future of AI, gave a terrifying idea of “AI with free will” which will not be in human control. It will think, execute, develop and learn itself.
When Schmidt was asked that how AI with free-will could be countered, Schmidt laughingly replied, “If computers develop free-will, we are just going to unplug them.”
So, we should beware of the future where our last resort will be to unplug the computers.
