Blog Post #9 

AI

AI makes everything easier, right? While AI does have many positive aspects and propels us into the future of technology, it does have many negative implications. AI stands for artificial intelligence, which refers to machines learning and evolving to perform tasks. They learn from experience and continue to learn from more interactions. At first, it's exciting. It's going to make our lives easier. But at what point does it make it too easy and start to do more harm to society? 

The frontline documentary provided insights into AI and its developments. The first thing I found amazing was that this video was from 4 years ago. So, the progression from this video to today is even more advanced. The video explores aspects of AI growth and its role. The conversation was always there but became a headline when it was AI versus the best Go player, Lee Sedol, and the AI came out victorious. I believe this example in itself shows the positives and negatives of AI. It positively shows how AI can help us think outside of the box and create new ideas and moves. However, it indicates how AI can outsmart humans and take over their roles, which leads to present-day how AI is stealing human jobs because it is cheaper and faster than humans working. While its productivity is up, that increases unemployment. 

The video also touched on the connection between AI and privacy. The video shows China and its surveillance system tracking citizen movements. China uses this to control human behavior. With cameras all over they are able to track people and uses this as a threat to keep people in line. Another example is Google. The quote by Shoshana Zuboff, "We thought we were searching Google, we had no idea that Google was searching us," stuck with me. This is very telling of how much our technology has advanced and changed. We used to use technology like Google to gain information at a faster pace than reading books, for example. But now, utilizing the technology that was meant to help us is simply a backdoor for them to track us and keep record of what we do. 

This documentary reminds us that while AI is convenient we should continue to educate ourselves on it. Its goal is to guide us into the future and help us work more efficiently. Not be used to violate privacy and used as a threat. It cant become too powerful.