Artificial intelligence is here to stay, with all its controversies, questions and ambiguities. This is increasing in the workplace and changing the way we work. Many researchers have looked at the potential harms, but few have looked at the benefits.
We interviewed three Missouri University of Science and Technology faculty members with expertise in different academic disciplines and asked them about the future of AI, to what extent it is accepted by the general public , how it will interact with the economy and the ethical implications of its use.
The economy will be affected
The consensus among Missouri S&T experts is that while the economy will change, disruptions will be offset by new opportunities.
“AI will not reach general human capabilities within 20 years,” says Dr. Donald Wunsch, director of the Center for Artificial Intelligence and Autonomous Systems at the Kummer Institute and Mary Finley Professor of Electrical and Engineering Engineering. computer science at S&T University. “There will still be changes in the workforce, in blue-collar and white-collar positions. Some currently low-paying jobs will become much more valuable, and other six- and seven-figure jobs could be taken over by AI. For example, the AI of the future may achieve higher performance than a hedge fund manager. But people won’t trust an AI babysitter.
Dr. Daniel Shank, associate professor of psychological sciences at S&T, echoed Wunsch’s opinion.
“I’m not convinced that mass layoffs due to AI are likely, even on an industry-wide scale, at least in the near future,” says Shank. “AI is effective at completing processes and automating boring parts of tasks, but in doing so, industries are adapting and finding different uses for humans versus AI.”
Writing, music, film and art – traditional fields of the humanities – are those that are often featured in the media when it comes to the production and creation of AI. Many fear that these areas will be reduced to little interaction from humans. But the work will continue as it always has, but in different and new ways.
“Chatbots and large language models are an incredible development, and we’re only at the beginning of what this can do,” says Dr. Darin Finke, teaching professor of philosophy at Missouri S&T. “But the story of AI is a story of excessive hype. Every time a new technological breakthrough in AI emerges, the exaggerated predictions follow.”
How soon will you be working with AI?
One day, technology may eventually develop to the point where it can perform many functions in society. Are there safe sectors, such as teaching, medicine, hairdressing or plumbing? Would people be willing to work or interact alongside a fully AI colleague in a chatbot, graphic designer, or taxi driver role?
“I don’t think most people have experiences with AIs or robots as colleagues,” says Shank. “Even when AIs and robots replace human tasks, people tend to view them as tools or ways to augment their own work. »
Shank says there are still, even today, some tasks that AI or robots can do much better than humans, but humans continue to do them.
“In terms of automated systems, especially when there are options for humans or machines, broad acceptance, performance and personal preference come into play,” says Shank. “So there may be a baseline level of acceptance or preference, so that the same person may be terrified of getting into an autonomous vehicle, but also rather talk to a chatbot about a banking problem.
“In some sectors, sudden changes could disrupt employment conditions,” Shank continues. “For example, automated vehicles and human taxi drivers are a case where many conflicts are seen, including legal issues. »
Wunsch also believes that the time when individual robots can replace an individual person is still far away.
“If all drivers were AI, the problem would be much simpler, because humans are bad drivers. But people won’t accept that. I would accept that a driverless car moves slowly in a predictable environment, like a golf cart or certain factories – but not on typical roads,” says Wunsch. “The main problem is unpredictability. The general principle applies: the more carefully a problem can be specified, the more useful an AI solution is likely to be; and that still leaves plenty of room for the application of AI.
Can we ethically shape the use of AI?
Could human-to-human interactions in general become rarer in the future? Or perhaps the opposite will happen, because with more time and easier tasks, perhaps individuals will be allowed to devote more time and effort to volunteering or other enriching activities. Jobs will always exist, but the workplace, the job market, and entire industries may one day change beyond recognition.
“For years now, human-to-human interactions focused solely on organizational tasks have been declining,” says Shank. “We don’t need staff for every financial transaction and every service. There are consequences to not having long-term exposure to people working in different transactional areas like fast food. But nurturing meaningful personal relationships between people is far more important than their exposure to human fast food servers.
The impact on employment could lead to an ethics question on a new scale, Finke says.
“New technology will always be slightly ahead of the ethics associated with that technology,” says Finke. “And then the ethicists try to catch up.”
So, what is the connection between ethics and the world of AI? Often, history has the answer – with a similar panic occurring during the industrialization of agriculture and large-scale mechanical labor. Modern questions might instead be whether an AI-generated work of art can be “owned” or whether someone would allow the AI to teach their child in a classroom.
“With the rise of digital technology over the past two decades, many philosophy programs across the country have responded by developing courses and degrees specifically related to digital and AI ethics, which are relatively new areas,” says Finke. “The next steps are not only to further develop digital and AI ethics, but also to identify or formulate other unethical issues related to this technology.
“For example, can the result of ChatGPT be original? Can he really be creative? Who owns this production? Can it be copyrighted? » asks Finke. “AI technology is already being used in art and photography competitions, so questions of authorship and creativity, and even legality, seem to arise when writers, artists, poets or academics, or anyone else, uses AI in their works.”
Another aspect of the future of AI is the disparity between countries’ economies. Would the lack of infrastructure affect growth in certain regions of the world? Could AI narrow the gap between the world’s rich and poor, or could it widen it?
“AI will bring us closer to either utopia or dystopia, and the decisions we make now will influence the outcome that is achieved,” says Wunsch. “We must be responsive to the extraordinary level of international competition in AI”
If governments take a more passive role in the use or development of AI, then it will fall to businesses to fight for economic dominance. Perhaps there will be new large technology companies that emerge, or current large companies will expand with AI.
“AI arms races are more focused on companies than countries, and countries seem to be struggling to keep pace in terms of laws, taxes, trade deals and policies to guide the ethical use of AI,” says Shank. “On the other hand, there is an unequal distribution.”
Shank says only a handful of companies in the world can train the most advanced big language AI models that use statistical models to analyze and understand text, like the currently popular ChatGPT. But once formed, it can be easily distributed and integrated into products and used by people anywhere.
As for the race to the top, Wunsch acknowledges that it has already begun and could continue to intensify.
“The growth of AI between countries will remain a race,” says Wunsch. “There will still be plenty of room for innovation from unpredictable sources, particularly in the mathematics of AI. »
Wunsch also says he believes the political and economic impacts of AI will be enormous. He hopes that political leaders will turn to subject matter experts instead of listening to all the noise around AI – some of which is even produced by AI itself.
“The stakes are high, with strong pressures for regulation, some of which do not match the real opportunities and threats of AI. Our leaders must seek the advice of experts who align with voters’ interests,” Wunsch says. “Many coastal AI experts who influence policy overlook key issues that affect diverse elements of society and opportunities for disruptive innovation. In some cases, they prefer to delete it. And expert opinions differ widely, hence the need to seek local perspectives.