Every five years for the past few decades, a technology has emerged as the one to focus on. Big data and the cloud, which have been very successful in recent years, are striking examples. Today, artificial intelligence is at the heart of the debates and is raising many questions. Fiction for some, reality for others, AI continues to divide a large part of opinion, despite its undeniable advantages. Focus!
Artificial Intelligence: Two Diametrically Opposed Understandings?
Many specialists in the field agree to recognize it: rarely has a term evoked so many different reflections within the public. Indeed, when it comes to artificial intelligence, two distinct populations, speaking of two perfectly different things, are formed. Which ones?
On one side, there are the science proponents: researchers, developers, and engineers, who work on several disciplines grouped under the common category of AI. These include computer vision, machine learning, knowledge representation, planning, and speech synthesis.
From machine translation to GPS navigation applications and facial recognition, the above-mentioned disciplines, grouped under the term artificial intelligence, are found in various everyday products in different sectors of activity.
On the other side, there are fans of science fiction and other related fields, who see this intelligence rather as a machine equipped with a conscience, as well as a capacity for reasoning close to those of the human being. For them, a sufficiently complex computer could become truly autonomous.
Some people take the idea much further, suggesting that given the rapid increase in computer power, if a machine with consciousness existed, it would be possible to increase its artificial intelligence, to the point of making it extraordinarily superior to human intelligence. Some films such as “2001: A Space Odyssey”, “The Matrix” or “Terminator” illustrate this way of thinking well, and reinforce the defenders of the theory according to which AI is only science fiction.
Possibilities for conciliation?
Although they are opposed to each other and it seems impossible to reconcile them, these two conceptions can quite coexist as long as they remain in their respective spheres, at least in theory. However, in practice, the coexistence of the two understandings of artificial intelligence creates a lot of confusion among the general public, one being concrete, anchored in reality, and the other purely fictitious and speculative.
The confusion itself is summed up by the idea that the AI sector as it exists today could evolve to become similar to the intelligence depicted in many video games and movies shortly. Added to the general confusion is fear and uncertainty, feelings that are felt by both ordinary individuals and imminent experts in the field.
It must be said that beyond all the positive and revolutionary aspects of artificial intelligence, there are still serious points to watch regarding the development of the different disciplines that this concept brings together in the real world.
Are concerns generally well-founded?
Among other things, it is logical to worry about the economic impact that could have increasing and possibly sudden automation of a large number of jobs. One of the direct implications will be the pure and simple elimination of several professions (office or manufacturing workers, bus drivers, radiology technicians, etc.).
Ipso facto, the development of artificial intelligence could have as an immediate consequence a significant increase in the unemployment rate almost everywhere on the planet with in the long term a deterioration in the standard of living and living conditions. Another point of concern that experts in the sector are wondering is the risk of an unintentional bias at the heart of automated systems, which could harm certain sectors of the population. All this is without mentioning the possibility of automatic manipulation of important data, to influence public opinion!
Furthermore, it must also be remembered that the hysteria surrounding artificial intelligence, described as “evil superintelligence” by some, constitutes an unwelcome distraction that obscures. And the least we can say is that companies and the media, in their frantic quest for buzz and notoriety, are not doing much to improve the situation.
Information channels and private companies specializing in the sale of cutting-edge technological tools are indeed playing on the confusion between the machine learning algorithm of the real world and the human-robot of science fiction.
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