How artificial intelligence will change your life

While artificial intelligence (AI) has been with us for years, lately it seems to be everywhere. Each day, innovative new tools are appearing, such as ChatGPT, the Microsoft AI Azure portfolio and Google’s Gemini. Technology’s ability to quickly process mountains of data, learn from experience and replicate tasks associated with human cognition means that it has the potential to transform many of the things we do and enjoy. Indeed, the transformation is already underway in a wide range of areas.

We tend to adopt new technology so fast that it can take time for the questions we should be asking to catch up. For example, will AI make your job easier or make it redundant? Are you OK with your personal information being used by technology so that others can make a profit? How will AI affect you?

Do more social good

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You may find that AI is becoming a greater force for social good. Microsoft’s AI for Good initiative, for example, aims to help individuals and non-profits ramp up their progress in fields that include “accessibility, digital literacy and equity, sustainability and climate change, human rights and resilience, health disparities, food insecurity, cybersecurity and others.” Projects include mapping all the places humans live to understand natural disaster risks, or mapping the rooftops of buildings in India to predict which may collapse in different kinds of natural calamities.

According to Juan Lavista Ferres, Microsoft’s chief data scientist and the director of the AI for Good Lab: “A person would spend 400 years looking at satellite imagery and understanding if humans live there or not, but AI can do this in an hour.”

Improve health outcomes

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AI is already off to a healthy start in helping to improve medical outcomes for people. It’s being used in wearable technology, such as Fitbit watches worn by consumers with fitness goals or in devices worn by patients with serious conditions, such as heart disease, to monitor their conditions while they recover at home.

With its ability to quickly crunch large amounts of data, AI can also be used to speed up diagnoses and improve clinical outcomes. Take Thymia, an AI-based video game that can quickly generate more accurate mental health assessments, identifying the likelihood and potential severity of depression depending on their reactions to gameplay.

Make fast food faster

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Want better fast-food service and less chitchat with restaurant personnel? McDonald’s is giving customers a break from human interaction with a new highly automated restaurant in Fort Worth, Texas. Part of McDonald’s “Accelerating the Arches” plan, the test restaurant delivers food by conveyor belt inside the restaurant and via a drive-through lane, ordered either through an app or a kiosk in the restaurant, as part of a larger AI operating system.

Some critics warn that this approach could lead to massive job losses. But Forth Worth franchise owner Keith Vanecek claims: “The technology in this restaurant not only allows us to serve our customers in new, innovative ways, it gives our restaurant team the ability to concentrate more on order speed and accuracy, which makes the experience more enjoyable for everyone.”

Drive new transportation choices

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Thanks to AI, you might be able to have a more relaxed or productive morning drive. The self-driving or autonomous driving (AD) car business will likely continue to grow and become up to a $400-billion industry by 2035. While the developments in the industry have been marred by glitches (and accidents), the AI-fuelled technology should continue to improve so that performance is more reliable.

According to a McKinsey report: “AD systems may make driving safer, more convenient and more enjoyable. Hours on the road previously spent driving could be used to video call a friend, watch a funny movie or even work.”

Put more service into customer service

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AI will continue to improve customer service, tailoring information and services to your individual needs. There’s already a profusion of AI-powered chatbots, providing fast, automatic responses to queries while taking some of the load off human agents.

With its data-gathering capabilities, AI can help collect more pertinent data about individuals to provide more relevant product recommendations. AI can also help people find the information they want faster, so that they can solve their own customer service issues.

Shorten the learning curve

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Whether you’re a teacher or a student, there’s a lot you can learn from AI. At first, you might be worried that tools such as ChatGPT will make it easy for kids to cheat and that this technology might do away with many teaching jobs. However, this technology offers huge benefits for the learning process. The Center for American Progress points out: “Artificial intelligence can help students learn better and faster when paired with high-quality learning materials and instruction.”

AI can use enormous datasets to quickly analyze a student’s strengths and weaknesses, and create personalized learning experiences. It can also help teachers with routine, time-consuming tasks such as grading assignments and making lesson plans. And chatbots can provide 24/7 support to students.

Make it easier to search the web

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Artificial intelligence may change how you search for information on the internet. Rather than using a typical search engine, you might plug your query into a chatbot that can answer by pulling from sources all over the web.

Search engines themselves are also becoming smarter. For example, early in 2023, Microsoft launched an all-new AI-powered Bing search engine based on GPT-4, the technology used for ChatGPT. Users can have different conversation styles in searching, including “more creative,” “more balanced” and “more precise.”

No need to write it yourself

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As a professional writer or content developer, you might picture a future where you watch the screen, arms folded, as AI writes your content for you. But then why would your client or editor need you at all?

On a positive note, AI claims to help writers by checking their grammar and spelling, generating more content in less time, providing a fresh perspective to break through writer’s block and taking care of mundane tasks so the writer can concentrate on more interesting work (or finding a new job).

Pose privacy problems

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AI usually works by amassing and analyzing huge amounts of data. You might worry that your personal data gleaned from different sources is being used indiscriminately by AI—and you would be justified. Apple CEO Tim Cook once observed: “Advancing AI by collecting huge personal profiles is laziness, not efficiency. For artificial intelligence to be truly smart, it must respect human values, including privacy. If we get this wrong, the dangers are profound.”

As AI becomes more prevalent, the drive to protect personal data is gaining momentum. Suggestions to protect sensitive information include decoupling identities from the information gathered and insisting that developers put privacy at the core of what they do.

Erase a lot of jobs

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While AI may offer numerous benefits for society, it also has the potential to take away your job, especially if it’s routine, repetitive or objective. AI can quickly learn the task of someone, say, in a warehouse, who separates things into bins and then optimize performance so it can do the same thing faster and more accurately.

Some of the jobs likely to be affected include journalists, computer programmers and coders, legal industry workers, market analysts, teachers and stock traders.

Wage better war

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Technology has been put to military use since the dawn of civilization, and AI is no exception: today, it’s being used more and more by the military to make its brand of conflict resolution more effective.

It can boost the performance of warfare systems that include weapons, sensors, navigation, aviation support and surveillance. It can be used to coordinate swarms of drones that are much more effective than a single flier. Other uses include combat simulation, strategic planning and cybersecurity.

A better way to make widgets

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According to the World Economic Forum, AI is in the process of revolutionizing the manufacturing sector. If you work on or run an assembly line, you’ll see more smart, self-controlled systems that will automate dull, repetitive tasks, increase productivity and provide greater flexibility in the face of supply-chain issues or other disruptions. Technology can even help manufacturers become more sustainable. It can work to reduce emissions by predicting future energy consumption and emissions, while optimizing production processes.

Ramp up cybersecurity

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As an individual or a company, the security of your information and finances is put at risk by the growing number of cyberattacks. The good news is that artificial intelligence can be used in a number of different ways to thwart these dangers, including quickly identifying and responding to new threats, pinpointing vulnerabilities in systems and improving data centre processes.

The less good news is that the bad guys also have access to AI, ramping up the quantity and quality of their attacks, probing for weaknesses in networks at lightning speed.

It’s 1984 all over again

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George Orwell and his Big Brother fears in the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four might prove true, with the invasive surveillance potential of artificial intelligence. This is already the case in China, where surveillance cameras employ facial-recognition software, using it to collect data on individuals, including dissidents.

More recently, dozens of Chinese firms have developed AI software solutions to improve surveillance capabilities, organizing the data collected more effectively, and helping to better archive and identify faces that are partially blocked, masked or wearing glasses.

Help you go higher, faster, stronger

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While athletics are all about doing your personal best, artificial intelligence can give you a competitive edge. Machine-learning tools help to analyze movements to improve athletic performance and can even help to predict injuries. One smartphone training app, Home Court, enables basketball players to improve their shooting form and monitor their progress, while AIEndurance helps runners and cyclists train.

AI can even be used to comb through hours of digital footage of performances to quickly find the exact shot of a play or move that needs to be analyzed.

Revolutionize the marketing industry

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If you work in the marketing and advertising industry, you know that the process of AI transforming what you do is already underway. There have even been ad campaigns created by AI after the technology analyzed previous campaigns in the same product category.

AI and machine learning can analyze consumer buying and behaviour patterns to come up with effective marketing strategies. The technology can place advertising in front of consumers at the exact moment they are most receptive to it. It can personalize marketing messages to individuals, automate repetitive tasks, predict conversion rates of campaigns and much more.

True conversations with virtual assistants

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Embedded in dedicated speakers and smartphones, AI voice-activated assistants such as Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa, Microsoft’s Cortana and Google’s Assistant are already used to set up music playlists, turn on the lights in our homes, answer questions we may have and much more. In the future, these virtual assistants may become even more “human,” having true interactive conversations with us, not just responding to commands.

Natural language processing may be used, for example, as the basis to give technology the ability to really listen and problem solve, not just rely on scripted responses.

Handle money better

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According to Deloitte, “The emergence of AI is disrupting the physics of the [financial] industry, weakening the bonds that have held together the components of the traditional financial institutions and opening the door to more innovations and new operating models.”

At banks, AI can be used to provide customers with more personalized services. Technology can also help with fraud detection and prevention, make more accurate revenue forecasts and stock price predictions, better manage credit risk, detect and prevent fraud and much more.

Change our relationship with time and people

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We could get used to AI’s convenience and instant gratification and become impatient with anything that is more demanding. And our immersion in different AI-based entertainment and social media options could get in the way of having face-to-face social relationships with real people.

Develop self-awareness

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While AI is able to crunch more data than we can, it isn’t fully sentient or self-aware yet. But that doesn’t mean that it won’t be someday. Opinions are divided as to whether or not developing self-awareness would be a good thing or if it’s even possible.

Others worry that if you have fully sentient AI that can think for itself and learn without external help, then what does it need us for? Movies like Terminator, Her, Ex Machina and A.I. Artificial Intelligence offer glimpses of such a possibility. But at this point, it’s still just science fiction.