In the past ten years, machines took over a significant amount of tasks where humans cannot keep up. Every aspect of our lives is primarily influenced by the technology of the decade. Science, entertainment, transportation, information, environment, and even laws have changed over this decade because of AI development. Humans entirely trust everything in technology, with AI being the most significant today.
The Evolving Technology
From just a topic of nerds to commoners’ everyday companion, this development of AI happened within this decade. AI developed techniques like machine learning and deep learning. AI was just able to find answers back then. Thanks to those techniques, AI can now establish rules and processes to even find and solve problems. The power granted to AI is saving a significant amount of time and resources, and the knowledge to control it becomes more accessible to the public.
Our Changing Society
Robots and humans were already working together in 2010, but not too reliant with each other. Unlike today, ordinary people have limited access to AI, and the people who worked with AI are trained and knowledgeable. After a decade, almost everyone, even from third world countries, can participate in AI development.
With the rise of AI, we can see that automation is already not exclusive for industrial purposes. Robots that serve and sometimes harm people are already brought to homes and pockets. These machines are being more reliable than ever, happening within the past ten years.
Entrusting someone with information is now quickly done and processed by using AI. Today, almost everyone has their data uploaded and encrypted within the internet. Accounting and admin tasks are also automated, including decision making. Personalized searches and deals improved rapidly, and service jobs became more efficient. For instance, the indexing algorithm was pioneered by AltaVista in 1995, but personalizing it for search results was done by Google in 2010.
Before, we consult people who studied for years before we decide life-changing decisions. That changed within this decade since studies are already being packed into machines. Energy distribution, medical, and military, already use AI before making people do the work. Mentioned areas are already controversial, but in this decade, politicians also became aware of the deciding power of AI.
These are examples of life-changing moments in this decade when AI intervened. In 2017, a drone helped locate stranded victims of Hurricane Maria. In 2016, Germany developed EWeLiNE to automate the power grid supply, making it more efficient. Also, in 2016, AI was reported to have rampaged in Pakistan, possibly killing thousands of people.
In 2012, Zeynep Tufekci of the New York Times mentioned that there are “an unprecedented number of data analysts and social scientists” during Obama’s reelection campaign. In 2018, Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook was interviewed by US senators concerning the privacy of the users of the said social media platform.
How The World See AI
Because of machine learning development through this decade, robots can recognize and generate speech and emotions. It brings us close to utilize deep learning, which Karen Hao from Technology Review described as “machine learning on steroids.” Hao also mentioned neural nets as a brain with its nodes as neurons, which are being used today. In the future, we may even see structure learning, where computers learn from fluent input like how young humans learn languages.
In 2019, Harvard’s social scientist Shoshana Zuboff wrote the book “The Age of Surveillance Capitalism.” In this book, she explained that a new economic system “unilaterally claims human experience as free raw material for translation into behavioral data.” She said that its purpose is gambling to profit from predicted human behavior.
There are bodies of law developed in this decade to regulate the legalities of using AI. European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) was formed to define the rights of the “data subject” for limiting the legal uses of valuable AI training datasets. Attempting to regulate means that AI is being treated as a formidable weapon, and not a new life form competing for resources. In the wrong hands, programmers can be hired to make technological tools dangerous.
The Future Of Advanced Technologies
AI will definitely grow in the next decade, thanks to the increasing number of interested individuals. However, it will also become a challenge to attempt controlling it. Governments may use it to regulate people, and technology is faster and more capable than how laws are being developed. We are aware that AI would become better, but there might evolve another technology, like robots, that will take over our lives. Some robots can interact with people already, and mass producing them is becoming more feasible. Robots, unlike AI, are physical machines, and can help people more conveniently. They can transport, perform skilled tasks, and do unmanned missions, which can be powered with AI. Precise motion is what sets them apart, thanks to servo motors installed in the robot joints. If you are interested in making robots, click here for a guide before doing your first project.