Artificial Intelligence (better represented as AI) is one of the hottest trends that’s taking a center seat in technological developments. It has extended its grips everywhere, be it the smartphone in our hands or the autonomous cars that are being trained to drive without a bit of human interference.
These are just a few examples to highlight the fledgling use-cases of AI technologies. But, the innate question that’s been stuck in everyone’s mind is — Will the AI machines one day replace our human jobs and leave us employed in the near future?
Well, this was one of the prominent points of discussion at EmTech China, an annual event hosted by MIT Technology Review. It saw the top minds from the fields of science, as well as business, gather and discuss the prospects of AI from every aspect they possibly could.
As more and more individuals connect to the Internet, there’s no dearth of data for the tech giants to use and reach actionable conclusions. AI can sometimes be applied in unexpected use-cases, similar to the fact that we never thought smart voice assistant will one day be welcome in our bedrooms, but they’re here now. Adding to the same, iFlytek’s senior VP Guoping Hu says:
I think that companies should first analyze their own business and work to see where AI can be used. We have a cooperation with a pig farm where we use AI to detect if pigs are coughing because there is nobody inside the barn for that purpose.
As for artificial intelligence becoming capable of taking over our daily jobs, there were two conflicting opinions presented by the speakers on stage. While a majority of them were reassuring the audience that only dull and repetitive tasks will go under with the application of AI in every field, there were others who openly voiced their opinions that artificial intelligence is steadily becoming capable of everything only humans could do.
On one hand, Microsoft’s natural language processing (NLP) researcher Ming Zhou showed off how AI was learning to draw shapes and compose music, iFlytek demonstrated the real-time translation capabilities of its software and a robotic news reporter. And not to tone down the sentiment, the whole audience was stunned to see this development.
At this point, one could say that AI is learning to be creative and as proven by Google, it’s possible to teach computers all these things. The speakers further added that several tech giants have already work on artificial intelligence and it is believed that,
Five years later everyone will be doing AI, and a lot of people will not be able to get a job.
Now, this may sound frightening to a whole lot of you, but this is the truth. I do share the sentiment of the speakers at EmTech China and believe that AI technologies are no longer stuck in its nascent stages and tech giants are now experimenting to gain an advantage in every sector that currently needs manpower to operate. So, AI taking over human jobs may soon not be a question worth asking but a reality we face. What are your thoughts on this development? Let us know in the comments below.
