Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, many people have exhibited anxiety about the arrival of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and how it will potentially change the nature of life and jobs. In 21 Reasons for the 21st Century, Yuval Harari infers, “AI is becoming smarter, faster, and better at communicating, analyzing, learning, and understanding human emotions.” In other words, our cognitive abilities are becoming less special.
Harari says experts in neuroscience and behavioral economics are learning more about “the biochemical mechanisms that underpin human emotions, desires, and choices.” Some of their research suggests that people’s decision-making processes for selecting food and even lovers isn’t simply free will, but a process that involves “billions of neurons, calculating probabilities within a split second.”
The foundation of our intuition is pattern recognition; however, people still make mistakes because the “biological algorithms of the human brain are not perfect.” But when AI has an IQ of 500 or 500 million: it will master algorithms better than us, never make a mistake, at least not the same one twice, and maybe deliver human solutions to big problems if we allow it.
The combination of revolutions currently permeating infotech and biotech, mixed with AI, the Internet of Things, and robotics implies how many new jobs will be created and destroyed. People will be forced to reimagine their functions, develop new skills that are in demand, and reconsider their life paths over another, especially if AI is expected to “outperform human psychologists and body guards around 2050.”
There’s still uncertainty around how fast jobs will be created and eliminated, but it's abundantly clear how the global workplace is being transformed and employers are gaining more control over workers through AI.
For example, according to the Economist, Amazon gives some of their warehouse workers patented wristbands that measure hand movements in order to assess productivity. Employees specifically feel vibrations when they become less efficient, which means older workers could face higher risks of losing their job in certain industries, if they work more slowly than younger colleagues labor.
Other software companies like Humanyze sell badges that track employees’ movements around the workplace in order to gauge how well workers collaborate and achieve. These devices further make recommendations regarding office layouts. Slack, a cloud-based team collaboration tool, stands for “searchable log of all conversation and knowledge” and Veriato analyzes everything workers type into computers to determine company loyalty.
Finding the perfect balance between privacy and performance may not be easy. Everyone will be forced to adapt in order to create a fair and productive workforce. AI is sending us into a new Reformation that will change “policing, medicine, and agriculture.” According to Harari, the technology will become proficient at “facial expressions, tones of voice, body movement, and odors,” with sensors that are more accurate and dependable than humans.
When it comes to creativity, it seems like AI has a long way to go. In Mozart: A Life, Paul Johnson reiterates how music and painting are “full of tricks, dodges, falsehoods in the cause of art, deception and lies that serve the higher truth,” but at some point, according to Harari, AI could “understand and manipulate human emotions better than Shakespeare, Frida Kahlo, and Beyonce.”
Moving forward, more transparency is needed concerning how AI is used. In turn, data should be anonymous when possible, and governments should allow citizens to access their own data. Big companies and powerful institutions need to be good stewards of the public’s trust, especially as AI gives us a glimpse of the radical changes we will see in economic organization, corporate architecture, new ways of harnessing the power of human capital and gaining wealth, and how humans inhabit this earth in general.
None of us can say with confidence how the situation with AI will manifest, but Google’s CEO predicts, “AI will be more important to humanity then fire and electricity.” Overall, no matter how it plays out, it’s important to remember “small acts can reshape the entire future genetic history of humanity.”