This blog post provides an overview of how AI has been depicted in science fiction, and what insights that offers into the future of AI-enabled warfare. However, as Benson (2022) noted, fictional portrayals of AI often present exaggerated threats. This obscures realities around developing and deploying AI technology for civilian and military uses (Chubb et al., 2022). One insight is that popular AI fiction risks shaping policies around real-world AI in a one-dimensional way. For instance, the media amplifies scare stories while more nuanced perspectives struggle to be heard. This likely fuels the AI anxiety Cox (2020) critiques in higher education. Distinguishing fact from fiction regarding AI’s capabilities remains important, while still taking issues like bias and existential risk seriously. Nonetheless, for this exercise, I used Microsoft Copilot to write a blog post on the rise of AI. In terms of writing with Copilot, this illustrates some strengths. For example, it can generate responsive draft text by pattern matching prompts and sources. However, coherence and accuracy are uneven. As seen here, it awkwardly integrates fragmented ideas rather than synthesizing key claims (Wu et al., 2021). Copilot may boost writing productivity but likely requires close human editing to meet quality standards.
The Rise of AI: A New Era
Introduction
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has been a fascinating concept of science fiction for decades, but many researchers think we’re finally getting close to making AI a reality.
What is AI?
In computer science, the term artificial intelligence (AI) refers to any human-like intelligence exhibited by a computer, robot, or other machines. In popular usage, artificial intelligence refers to the ability of a computer or machine to mimic the capabilities of the human mind—learning from examples and experience, recognizing objects, understanding and responding to language, making decisions, solving problems—and combining these and other capabilities to perform functions a human might perform, such as greeting a hotel guest or driving a car.
An Image depicting AI
(https://th.bing.com/th/id/OIG2.ljPNigWMpt9iJqWgY5h4?pid=ImgGn)
The Impact of AI
The impact of AI on society and on businesses is transformational. AI is paving the way for new strategies that businesses can leverage to deliver superior customer experiences and drive growth. Companies are using AI to enhance their products with automatic speech recognition, image recognition, natural language processing, and machine learning.
For instance, in healthcare, AI is being used for dosing drugs and personalizing treatment plans with advanced analytics and machine learning that can predict patient health outcomes.
An infographic showing how AI is used in healthcare.
(https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&url=https%3A%2F%2Figniteoutsourcing.com%2Fhealthcare%2Fartificial-intelligence-in-healthcare%2F&psig=AOvVaw2hVy1WJ0afI9pxVGgoMkC2&ust=1706901048945000&source=images&cd=vfe&opi=89978449&ved=0CBMQjRxqFwoTCOCI-4nsioQDFQAAAAAdAAAAABA6)
In finance, AI plays a key role in detecting fraudulent transactions within seconds, which human analysts might take hours to identify.
An image showing AI in finance.
(https://jelvix.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/ai-in-finance-services.jpg)
AI and Big Data
One of the key drivers of AI development is the availability of vast amounts of data, known as Big Data, from which to learn and make decisions. Machine learning algorithms, a subset of AI, are designed to make predictions or decisions based on data. This ability to analyze and learn from data sets AI apart from traditional software.
(https://www.researchgate.net/publication/360231568/figure/fig1/AS:1155213952069657@1652435877942/The-relationship-between-big-data-artificial-intelligence-Internet-of-Things-and-cloud.jpg
The Future of AI
As we continue to advance in this exciting era of digital transformation, AI is expected to become an increasingly common aspect of our daily lives, driving efficiency, productivity, and innovation.
An image depicting the future of AI.
(https://i0.wp.com/andrewggibson.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/DALL%C2%B7E-2023-11-26-11.46.27-A-futuristic-landscape-depicting-humans-and-AI-entities-evolving-together-in-harmony.-The-scene-includes-advanced-human-like-robots-interacting-with--jpg.webp?fit=1792%2C1024&ssl=1)
Conclusion
Remember, while AI is a powerful tool, it’s important to use it responsibly and ethically. As we continue to explore the potential of AI, we must also consider the ethical implications and strive to use AI to create a better and more equitable world.
A YouTube video explaining AI ethics
Overall, this exercise shows that while AI promises to transform areas like education and warfare, informed, nuanced debate is needed, avoiding reactionary narratives. Responsible AI development requires engaging diverse experts and community, not just techno-optimist and pessimist extremes. As AI capabilities advance, an ethical, evidence-based approach to governance will only grow in importance.
References
Benson, D. C. (2022, June 3). The Strategy Bridge. The Strategy Bridge. https://thestrategybridge.org/the-bridge/2022/6/3/ai-in-fiction-and-the-future-of-war
Chubb, J., Reed, D., & Cowling, P. (2022). Expert views about missing AI narratives: is there an AI story crisis?. AI & society, 1-20. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-022-01548-2
Cox, A. (2020). AI and robots in Higher Education: Eighteen design fictions. Figshare. https://doi.org/10.15131/u002Fshef.data.13139816.v1
Wu, J., Ouyang, L., Ziegler, D. M., Stiennon, N., Lowe, R., Leike, J., & Christiano, P. (2021). Recursively summarizing books with human feedback. arXiv preprint arXiv:2109.10862. https://doi.org/10.48550/arXiv.2109.10862
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