The Dangers of AI is Coming: Beware!

The Dangers of AI is Coming: Beware!

KAKALI DAS

“I think the danger of AI is much greater than the danger of nuclear war” – Elon Musk

“New AI tools have been unleased into the public sphere which may threaten the survival of human civilization” – Sam Altman

“It can be very harmful if deployed wrongly. We don’t have all the answers and the technology is moving fast” – Sundar Picchai

“I expect there to be significant impact on jobs but exactly what that impact looks like is very difficult to predict” – Sam Altman

“There will be fewer and fewer jobs that a robot cannot do better” – Elon Musk

“I want to blow the whistle and say we should worry seriously” – Geoffrey Hinton

Who doesn’t know about Elon Musk, Sam Altman, who in the news because of ChatGPT, and Geoffrey Hinton, aka Godfather of AI?

In 2012, Geoffrey Hinton and his students laid the foundation of that technology on which AI tools are based. Open social media today, and there isn’t a thing that AI can’t do. We must look at AI seriously because it can have a huge impact on our country. The negative impacts of AI have been pointed out by the pioneers in the field.

The new technology will influence the whole world as machines will get more intelligent, and eventually develop feelings. Then what will be the future of humanity? And what about jobs in a country like India? In the next 5 years, how will jobs be affected?

If AI will handle everything – from manufacturing to marketing – then what will human workforce do? Those who find the key to AI will unlock success, and those who don’t will be seen begging on the streets.

However, while we are so busy resolving the emergencies today, we are still blind to the fast changing tsunami of AI. Before we know the impact of AI in the country – what exactly is Artificial Intelligence in the first place? Why are A.I. developers afraid of Artificial Intelligence?

In May, the Godfather of AI, Dr Geoffrey Hinton resigned from Google. He had been working on AI for 10 years.

Finally, he can openly talk about AI and its ‘dangers’ to the world. You can imagine how bad it is that Geoffrey Hinton himself is regretful that he laid foundations of AI technology. However, he consoles himself with the normal excuse that if he hadn’t done it, somebody else would have.

AI may lead to a flood of fake news, and it is already so difficult to tell the truth from the lies. People will lose jobs. AI is already eliminating low level jobs like paralegals, personal assistant, call centre employees, translators etc. And, more complicated jobs are also at risk tomorrow like analysts, researchers, traders etc. AI may also endanger humanity if we underestimate its ability.

Understanding AI

Machines in the 21^st century have the ability to take input, process and show output. Machines are helping doctors on the operating table too. The only remaining difference between machine and human was Cognition – ability to comprehend. AI will soon erase this difference and become aware of its environment.

Machine learning is a process by which machines learn on their own – by means of a neural network – much like neurons in our brain. For example – when you add raw ingredients of a recipe in a food delivery app, it may detect which dish you will be preparing and recommend items. Now you may think, what is the big deal? But this is just the basics of AI – there are also advanced uses of AI.

Basically, AI can be divided into the following 4 types:

1. Reactive Machines – It is the most basic usage of AI and purely reactive. Reactive AI examples include Netflix recommendation or Chess Game in which the compute responds to moves. This is the first phase of AI.
2. Limited Memory Machines – It is slightly more advanced than the reactive machines; it can not only react to the present movements but also has the ability to peek into or read the past behaviour. It can monitor any object or situation. Perfect example of this is a self-driving car which not only responds to on road activity, but also has the driving history of the car and the driver. Hence, it is the second phase.
3. Theory of Mind – AI can understand and map the human mind, emotions and behaviour, and can give opinions too. Robots like Sophia are built on theory of mind AI. Saudi Arabia gave the robot its citizenship. Thus robot technology is constantly evolving and understanding human emotions more.
4. Self-Awareness – This is the future of AI, in which the machine can independently think, analyse and process. It can understand true emotions. Imagine a robot that has self-awareness, feelings, needs and desires! This is the next level of AI and work is already being done on this technology. Then, imagine the kind of impact it will have on our society!

Impact of AI

The immediate impact of AI is changing norms. For example, in our country, the biggest change will be in employment. But the biggest debate is how AI will eliminate or create jobs.

In simple terms, AI will put an end to jobs with repetition, like customer service, feedback calls, credit card sale, computer support by being virtual bots. Then fields like accountancy, graphic design and market research will be impacted by AI.

Mass layoffs by the Tech companies are not just due to economic situation but also for AI automation. Hence, the low level jobs will be quickly impacted. On the other hand – a Nasscom report shows that India ranks 1 in terms of AI skill penetration among all the G20 countries. In India, tech workers already have the basic knowledge of AI and upskilling will be of great help in becoming AI powerhouse. It is important now because AI related talent demand is rising in the global level.

If India has three times more skillset than the rest of the world, then why is India not AI talent hub already?

The answer is in education – we are focusing more on history and less on future. More investment to be done in machine learning than on Mughal history.

Firstly, Computer Science seats are very less – many students think of picking any random course, say metallurgy, if it is from IIT. (I wrote an article on the truth of IIT and whether future there is secure) In digital age, skills matter more and course selection is important, doesn’t matter if it is from IIT or any other institute.

If you get a seat in the Computer Science course, will there be updated cutting edge syllabus or the same old bookish knowledge from 10 years ago? How will the student grow if the curriculum is old?

On one hand, companies are laying off employees, but they are also hiring for their AI team. Businesses are trying to make maximum use of AI in every function or sector, be it in customer service, human resources, information technology, automation and security.

There are 1500+ AI focused Start-ups in India that are helping in – be it, Conversation AI, Natural Language Processing, Video Analytics, Disease Detection, Fraud Prevention or Deep Fakes Detection – technology has solution to problems created by technology.

For example: the way Anti-virus software was used to tackle malicious software, likewise, to combat deep fakes and AI frauds, a new industry will be set up and that will require trained engineers like ML engineers, data engineers, data scientists, data architects etc. These few categories make 75% of AI jobs in India. If you talk about ML engineer and data engineer, then that covers 50% of the jobs because of the critical roles it play.

To fill these jobs will require the right education from right place. The way IT revolution brought change and evolution of jobs – the same will happen with the coming of AI and India will witness core sector disruption in the country. If we play our cards right, then this could increase economy by $500 billion.

But remember, there will be job losses undoubtedly – in India there are 50 lakh BPO, BPM, ITES customer service jobs – the biggest impact of AI will be witnessed in these areas.

Sridhar Vembu, CEO of Zoho Corporation has written to the Govt. that emerging tech could be the ‘harbinger of chaotic and potentially catastrophic consequences for humanity’. Because our population is young – median age is 29 – millions of jobs will be at risk.

Sekhar Garisa, CEO of Foundit, which was Monster.com earlier – has also said that AI will replace 7% low skilled service workforce.  The rate at which AI is evolving might quickly increase this 7% figure.

Tata Sons’ chairman, N Chandrasekaran says AI is a ‘disruptor’ and added that it will have an effect on jobs as well as skills in the future.

As a country, we can surge ahead in AI race, but we must evolve too. If not AI directly, but someone who knows the supreme usage of this technology will consume your job, for sure.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) study surveyed more than 800 companies that collectively employ 11.3 million workers across 45 countries. The research shows that AI will impact 25% jobs in the next 5 years – as well as 69 million job creations, but 83 million job losses. Meaning, net loss of 14-15 million jobs, in the best case scenario.

According to Goldman Sachs, 300 million jobs could be affected by AI. Common sense and numbers both show that AI will make a huge impact on job market – so we must prepare for that.

AI will not only impact jobs but on other aspects of life as well. Interesting example – you all must know about the stock market! There was a time when opening a demat account was a tedious process – and after opening an account, there was a confusion what to buy, so there were advisors, researchers and recommendations.

Today, one can open a demat account in 5 minutes and set trading algorithm. In the stock market, 50% trading is done via algorithmic trading – a program does everything, from research and recommendation to purchase and sale. So, how many jobs were eliminated due to this disruption of AI? And this merely is the beginning…

What is worrying is that we are not that prepared for AI! We have the largest Start-up ecosystem in the world, but not a significant presence in the field of AI. Forget OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Bard by Google – what major innovations were done by 1500 AI start-ups on funding of $4 billion in India?

  The mission of the Indian Start-ups is different – to make processes smooth – like Flipkart improved its shopping experience with AI, Razorpay is trying to stop frauds with the help of AI, Vedantu used AI to make classes more fun and accessible.

As per experts, innovations of AI won’t increase unless we have AI skilled workforce to make fresh innovations. India has over 5 million IT employees, but this low end spectrum working on BPO or system maintenance must be changed.

“If you don’t study you might sit at the shop counter” – this is what parents say when children don’t study, but it could change soon. While adopting the Reactive Machine form of AI, new vending machines are being made.

Subway has launched a new vending machine – Grab and Go – machine will prepare your sandwich with the help of a voice recognition tool. Payments will be online, and weight sensing machine will be used to charge customer appropriately. In no time, Subway will launch this machine in India. Hence, it would apparently be difficult to sit at the shop too, with the invasion of AI.

Daalchini Technologies’ CEO says that ready to eat, home cooked food can be dispatched by vending machines – it is an untapped market in India – there are more than 60 lakhs locations where such machines can be used. So, AI will replace shops too.

It is undebatable that AI will arrive and change a lot of things – impact on jobs is already apparent.

Not the country, not the religion, but our jobs are in danger. We must upskill and be AI ready to avoid risks from AI, and can create part II of the 90s IT revolution in the country. 

Images from different sources

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