Artificial intelligence (AI) ‘s impact on modern society is vastly debated. Most people argue that AI enhances the quality of our daily lives by doing monotonous, routine, and even complex tasks more efficiently than humans can ever do, making life safer, simpler, and better. On the other hand, others argue that AI poses a threat and privacy risks, costs workers their jobs, and aggravates racism by standardizing people, resulting in more significant unemployment. The harsh truth is that AI is and will continue to replace an array of jobs, but on the other hand, it’s also expected to create plenty of new jobs. Let’s talk about AI’s Impact on Modern Society and Job Loss.
The Development of AI
In recent years, AI has deeply woven itself into our everyday lives in numerous ways, some of which we might be unaware of. It’s become considerably pervasive to the extent that the majority of people remain unaware of its significant impact and our dependence on it.
From dawn to the wee hours of the night, as we go on about our daily routines, AI technology significantly drives what we do.
As you wake up, you probably look for your laptop or mobile phone to commence the day. Even though all this has become automatic, it plays an integral part in how we function in terms of planning, decision-making, and seeking information.
As soon as you switch on your devices, you might not even know, but you instantly plug into AI functionality such as:
- Applications and Emails
- Google Search
- Face ID and Image Recognition
- Online Banking
- Digital Voice Assistants such as Alexa (Amazon), Bixby (Samsung), and Siri (Apple)
- Social Media
- Shopping
- Driving aids such as traffic updates, route mapping, weather conditions, etc.
- Leisure downtime like Amazon and Netflix for shows and movies
Quite evidently, AI marks almost every aspect of our professional and personal online lives in the present day. Global interconnectivity and communication in business continue to be key areas. Hence, it’s vital to capitalize on data science and AI, and its potential development trajectory is limitless.
The Repercussions of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on Modern Society
Regardless of its general lack of knowledge and familiarity, AI is an outstanding technology that has drastically shaped and transformed every walk of life.
It’s an all-encompassing tool that allows people to rethink how information is integrated, data is analyzed, and the resulting insights are used to boost decision-making.
However, as with the majority of life changes, there’ll be both adverse and positive effects on society as AI continues to change our world. How that balances out is, once again, a debatable topic that leaves many people to contemplate.
Moving on, here are some of the difficulties that people might expect to face (and think of how to address those challenges) and the various positive effects AI will have on modern society.
Challenges to be faced
Without a doubt, AI will cause the worldwide workforce to evolve. The pessimistic headlines significantly highlight the loss of jobs to robots and machines. However, the primary challenge we humans need to deal with is finding our passion with new responsibilities that call for our uniquely human skills and abilities.
According to PwC, AI will replace 7 million jobs in the UK from 2017-2037. On the other hand, this could indicate the creation of 7.2 million jobs. This uncertainty and the transitioning and transformation of how people will actually make a living could be challenging.
AI’s revolutionizing effect in modern-day society will have substantial legal, economic, regulatory, and political implications that we must consider and be well prepared for.
Whether humans will ultimately fall behind and lose control of the machines or robots will become super smart, there will always be unexpected consequences wherever there’s a novel technology introduced. These unintentional consequences of AI will likely affect and test us all.
Another problem is making sure that artificial intelligence does not excel at doing the task or job it was created and designed to do that it crosses legal, moral, or ethical boundaries.
Even though AI’s primary objective and intention are to benefit humanity, it can harm modern society if it aims to accomplish its desired objectives in a destructive way, which can often be quite efficient too.
The algorithms in artificial intelligence should be constructed to align well with our principal objectives. These are data-driven algorithms, so as more data regarding every minute you spend in a day is gathered, the more your privacy is compromised.
If governments and businesses choose to do their decision-making based on the intelligence they collect about us, it can regress into social oppression.
Some Positive Impacts
Despite the many challenges AI brings, it has several positive impacts on modern society. For starters, AI can significantly boost workplace efficiency and enhance the work done by human beings.
When artificial intelligence takes over monotonous and repetitive or hazardous tasks, it vastly frees the labor workforce to do something they’re better equipped for, such as things requiring more human traits like empathy and creativity.
If people are doing more engaging and rewarding tasks, it can significantly boost job satisfaction and happiness.
-
Problem-Solving
With more efficient problem-solving and monitoring abilities, AI can also significantly impact healthcare. By enhancing healthcare facilities and medical firms’ operations, AI can drastically cut down on operating expenses and save money.
According to McKinsey, big data can save the pharmaceutical and medical industry up to $100 billion per year. Moreover, the potential for personalized drug practices and treatment plans and offering better access to data across healthcare facilities to help notify patient care will be life-changing.
Modern society can benefit from substantial productivity and efficiency with the emergence of AI affecting our traffic-blocking problems and autonomous transportation. Furthermore, there are multiple ways in which one can boost on-the-job productivity.
When humans no longer have to deal with stressful and exhausting commutes, they will be left with more free time, which they can spend in various other ways.
How criminal activities are exposed and crimes are solved can be significantly improved with AI. The groundbreaking facial recognition technology has gained much popularity and is now as common as fingerprints.
AI’s use in the judicial system also gives way to plenty of opportunities to understand how technology can be effectively used without invading someone’s privacy.
So, unless you plan to stop all means of interaction with the contemporary world and live remotely, you can expect AI to significantly impact your life.
Even though there’ll be numerous challenges and learning experiences as the technology is embedded into novel apps, you can expect AI to have a more positive than adverse impact on modern society.
Will Artificial Intelligence (AI) Replace Jobs?
The harsh truth is that AI has been and will continue to replace a few jobs. For instance, employees in industries varying from agriculture to healthcare and industrial sectors can expect minor (or even significant) disruptions in hiring due to artificial intelligence.
But, simultaneously, the demand for software engineering and robotics workers is projected to increase, thanks to artificial intelligence. This all comes down to one question: How will AI change work?
During a lecture at Northwestern University, an AI expert, Kai-Fu Lee, mastered artificial technology and its imminent impact while also paying attention to its limitations and side effects.
He stated that the bottom 90%, especially the bottom 50% of the world, regarding education or income, will be significantly hurt or adversely affected by job displacement.
By knowing the answer to “How routine is a job?” it becomes easier to understand how likely a job will be replaced by artificial intelligence. This is because AI can learn to optimize itself within routine tasks.
More objective and quantitative jobs, such as washing dishes, separating things into trash bins, responding to customer service calls, and fruit-picking, are some examples of scripted tasks that, by nature, are quite monotonous and repetitive. As a result, AI will soon displace these tasks or jobs in a matter of 5-15 years.
In Amazon’s warehouses, the online giant and artificial intelligence powerhouse, which has thousands of robots buzzing around, humans still perform a vast array of picking and packing functions. However, that, too, will change gradually.
ALSO READ: How To Create An NFT Collection
Wrapping Up
The bottom line is that there are two sides to this: Artificial intelligence and robots are bound to take away some jobs from us, but they will also give rise to new ones.
Since 2000, automation systems and robots have gradually phased out almost 1.7 million manufacturing jobs. But, if you look at the bright side, it is projected that artificial intelligence can create up to a whopping 97 million new jobs in just two years by 2025.
It’s not that robots and machines aren’t rising, but they are growing at a much slower pace than the media coverage might have you believe. In reality, this is excellent news for people who think that AI-driven technology and robots will soon take possession of their jobs.
