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Chapter 4 - We can benefit from artificial intelligence to make our lives better. In the past, scientists have been doubting AI’s objectivity and arguing that it wouldn’t escape from being biased since the data given to them by humans are biased and stereotypical. Academic researchers are also aware of the tendency of AI to be biased, but they also emphasize the possibility to use this to our advantage. They suggest that scientists can use AI to get rid of biases. We as humans cannot get rid of our biases if we just think about them alone; however, computer scientist Fei-Fei Li states that seeing our biases from an outsider’s perspective gives us the opportunity to correct them. Thus, we can say that AI could be influential in helping humans get rid of biases. This possibility is not unrealistic, either. Affectiva, created by Rana el Kaliouby who is a computer scientist and entrepreneur, is already using AI’s skill to eliminate biases. Kaliouby argues that it is time scientists begin considering the emotional intelligence of machines and stop focusing on their technical intelligence. Affectiva integrates algorithms and language processing techniques to create an AI hiring tool that is free of any subjectivity. Candidates that will be assessed by Affectiva send video interviews. Their non-verbal communication skills and answers are then evaluated by artificial intelligence. The result? One of the companies that are testing the system, Hirevue, stated that their hiring time was reduced by 90 percent. What is more, the diversity between newly hired people has increased by 16 percent. Another plan of el Kaliobuy is to support children who are diagnosed with autism, as they experience difficulty in assessing the atmosphere around them. Her team of scientists has contributed to the making of special glasses that can “read” the emotions of other people. These glasses can also provide feedback to the user about the emotions it reads. As a result, children on the autism spectrum are able to make more eye contact and develop a better understanding of other people’s emotions. These are not the only ways we benefit from AI. There are many other areas where AI can help the common people. For example, we can use machines for our mundane tasks like folding the laundry or ironing clothes. There is more. The director of Engineering at Google, Ray Kurzweil, argues that in the future we will have nanorobots in our bloodstreams. These nanorobots will be able to support our immune system, prolong our lifespan, and even create a connection between our brains and the Internet. Chapter 5 - AI helps scientific developments immensely, especially in healthcare. It is not a surprise that many hospitals are still full of stressed doctors and nurses. Healthcare professionals are required to work long shifts, lead hectic lives; therefore, they are susceptible to feel exhausted and stressed out. Doctors and nurses feeling burnout means that the healthcare patients receive may not be as extensive as compared to the treatment provided by healthy and well-rested professionals. Indeed, physician error maintains its position as the third most common cause of death in American hospitals. Fortunately, AI can support healthcare immensely. Entrepreneur Oren Etzioni states that delaying the integration of AI and healthcare means that we will lose lives that could have been saved. Since healthcare has many sub-fields, there are various ways where we can benefit from AI. Currently, neural networks can recognize when images presented to it include specific objects, like a cat. Thus, they can be trained to detect if there is a tumor in a radiology scan. Similarly, artificial intelligence can be used in recognizing symptoms of depression as well. As of now, we have no choice but to trust the symptoms given by a patient. But artificial intelligence can be used to detect facial and vocal biomarkers of depression to recognize symptoms that go unnoticed by humans. An AI that can scan faces and voices can easily recognize the symptoms of depression and help doctors give errorless diagnoses. If machines are trained to carry out some of the tasks in the healthcare area, then doctors and nurses would have more time and they could be more efficient in serious cases. AI can use algorithms to evaluate patient information and give feedback to doctors, patients, or their families. This way, AI can help physicians and patients save time. Of course, there are various areas other than healthcare where we can use AI. It can also help scientific researchers. Oren Etzioni’s project called Semantic Scholar uses AI to improve scientific research. Being up to date on the science world means scientists need to check the latest publications and considering that there is an unlimited amount of new research on various topics each day. Semantic Scholar helps those scholars by offering them research that they might be interested in and highlighting important information in those papers. We have touched upon what good AI can do for us. But is it a possibility that AI can be used for destructive purposes? In the next chapter, we will explore what can possibly go wrong with the use of artificial intelligence. Chapter 6 - Artificial intelligence can be weaponized. We all know humans have evolved to be more destructive over time. Bows and arrows from the past gave way to highly technical bombs. Nowadays, many people have access to drones, the newest technical hotshots. Anyone with access to drones can turn those devices into weapons by adding small bombs. Fortunately, these drones can only hold one bomb, and they can be used by a single person. Thus, they cannot be scaled to destroy the whole world. Still, it’s technically true that any kind of armament can be mass-produced and employed by the military. Thanks to the international sanctions and military readiness, such an issue is unlikely to occur. But we still don’t have enough sanctions to control autonomous weapons on an international scale. Autonomous weapons refer to weapons where a person can control an army of drones from a remote distance. Those weapons pose a high risk to humanity because they are easily scalable. Numerous drones can be controlled by a single person without many people noticing. Let’s say you control 10 million autonomous drones at the same time, probably only five or six people will notice them before you attack humanity just by clicking on a button. What is more, these drones can be trained to attack or murder specific people –they can filter every female that is aged between 12 and 60. As you can guess, developing autonomous weapons will have massive risks. One of the most likely scenarios is that countries will race each other to be the first to create such weapons. Those weapons, since they are programmed, would be susceptible to being hacked by enemies from other countries as well. In such a case, the country would be destroyed by its own weapons. Considering these plausible possibilities, we should always keep in mind the potential danger of such autonomous weapons if we want to develop them. International sanctions and government regulations are great ways to prevent risky outcomes. The researchers should try to make sure that they are developing the safest systems possible. AI can still be weaponized in other ways. For example, using advertisements to manipulate the votes of common people in an election. Indeed, Cambridge Analytica has benefited from Facebook user data to help Trump win the 2016 campaign. Still, the potential risks of AI are not limited to weaponization. The possibility of mass job loss remains a concern for the future. Chapter 7 - Universal basic income or monetary support for education can aid the issue of job automation. Suppose that you won’t have to work anymore in a few years. Do you feel pleased by the news? Or are you scared of what will happen to you? The fast development of artificial intelligence means that in a few decades most jobs could be automated. The most common examples are occupations with relatively simple, mechanical tasks such as cashiers, truck drivers, accountants, factory workers. Automation of jobs means that people who were employed for these positions will be laid off. So, how are they going to survive? There are, of course, some possible solutions to fix this issue. The majority of people the author interviewed have expressed their opinions that a kind of universal basic income would be necessary for such cases. UBI will definitely be an essential need when the majority of a sector is automated. Since artificial intelligence would help a business’s productivity tremendously, the revenue of companies could be gathered to provide monthly stipends to the citizens. The real question is whether the UBI will be needed or not. Considering human history, every time there was a groundbreaking technological development emerged, it was assumed that people would end up losing their jobs as a result. But we see that each time some jobs are eliminated by machines, new ones have emerged. Just a decade ago, nobody would assume that people could earn money by managing social media accounts. Now, there are various ways to gain money on social media. People that lose their jobs can undergo a strict education program. Countries could gather funds to support people without jobs to get educated and find new career paths. This suggestion is referred to as conditional basic income.