Mkhitar Sebastatsi Educomplex
High School
STUDENT: Yuri Hyusyan, Grade 12
SUPERVISOR: Silva Harutyunyan
Reviewer: Hermine Antonyan
Research Work
Artificial intelligence and its effects on humans
Yerevan 2024
Table of Contents:
Introduction: Artificial intelligence
Chapter one: What is Artificial intelligence (AI)?
Chapter two: Do human beings need artificial intelligence?
Chapter three: The Negative Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Society
Chapter four: The positive Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Society
Chapter five: The Challenge of Artificial Intelligence to Bioethics
Chapter six: The Role of AI: A Friend or Foe to Human Labor?
Conclusion
Sources
Introduction
AI has the potential to bring about numerous positive changes in society, including enhanced productivity, improved healthcare, and increased access to education. AI-powered technologies can also help solve complex problems and make our daily life easier and more convenient. While the benefits of AI are clear, there are also important ethical and societal implications that must be considered. Factors such as privacy, security, and the displacement of jobs represent just a fraction of the multifaceted challenges arising from the escalating adoption of AI. It is essential that we take a proactive stance in addressing these concerns and diligently strive to ensure that AI serves the greater good of society. As AI continues its evolutionary trajectory and solidifies its significance in our world, it becomes paramount to sustain investments in its development and progression. So you can’t avoid not getting interested in this technology, that’s why I have taken it as my research work. I’m sure it’s becoming a very important topic, because of the rapid advancement of technology, and how important it is to understand what can potentially be its effects on humans.
Chapter One
What is Artificial intelligence (AI)?
Artificial intelligence can be viewed differently; some see it as technology that allows computers and machines to function smart. Some see it as a machine that can replace human labor as it does the work for men much faster. Others see it as “a system” with the ability to correctly interpret external data, to learn from such data, and to use those learnings to achieve specific goals and tasks through flexible adaptation.
Artificial intelligence replicates human intelligence in machines, but it can not completely copy human thinking, because humans have emotions and AI doesn’t. AI can acquire knowledge from experience, from making decisions, and from performing tasks that require human intelligence. In other words, the term AI is used to describe these functions of human-made tool that emulates the “cognitive” abilities of the natural intelligence of human minds without any emotion.
As technology gets more advanced, we start to use AI more often in our daily life. Some aspects of AI, like optical character recognition or voice assistants like Siri (speech interpretation and recognition interface), are so common that we never thought of them as AI. They`ve become familiar tools we use regularly.
Chapter Two
Do human beings need artificial intelligence?
Is AI necessary for human society? It depends on the situation. If people want to get things done quicker and more efficiently, without taking breaks, then yes, AI can be helpful. But if we settle for a more natural way of life, without pushing the boundaries too much, then maybe not. Throughout history, humans have always sought faster, easier, and more effective ways to accomplish tasks. This constant pursuit of improvement encourages us to seek out new and better ways of doing things.
Above all, we see high-profile examples of AI including autonomous vehicles (such as drones and self-driving cars), medical diagnosis, creating art, playing games (such as Chess or Go), search engines (such as Google search), online assistants (such as Siri), image recognition in photographs, spam filtering, predicting flight delays…etc. All these have made human life much easier and convenient that we are so used to them and take them for granted. AI has become indispensable. Without it, our world will be in chaos in many ways today.
I think that people need AI but only in the medical field and in the astronomy, to raise the average life length and to colonize other planets, so the earth won’t have the problem of overpopulating. AI could also be used in the different fields but in the wrong hands it can be harmful, which is why I think that it should be used only in those two fields.
Chapter Three
The Negative impact of Artificial intelligence on society
Questions have been asked; With the quick development of AI, human labor will no longer be needed as everything can be done mechanically. Will AI make us lazy and bring us back to our primitive selves? Evolution takes forever, so we might not even notice if we regress. But what if AI gets so powerful it disobeys us and takes over?
Less human interactions
A huge social change that disrupts the way we live in the human community might occur. Humankind has to be industrious to make their living, but with the service of AI, we can just program the machine to do a thing for us without even lifting a tool. Human closeness will be gradually diminishing as AI will replace the need for people to meet face to face for idea exchange.
People becoming lazy
Another huge problem is human laziness, as AI will be able to do everything, even the smallest tasks, some people won’t do anything and they will just spend all they sleeping, which may sound harmless but not moving will cause problems in a long run.
AI replacing many jobs
Unemployment is the next because many workers will be replaced by machinery. Today, many automobile assembly lines have been filled with machinery and robots, forcing traditional workers to lose their jobs. Even in supermarkets, store clerks will not be needed anymore as digital devices can take over human labor
Wealth inequality
Wealth inequality might be created as the investors of AI will take up the major share of the earnings. The gap between the rich and the poor will be widened. The so-called “M” shape wealth distribution will be more obvious
AI spreading hate
People who create AI may invent something that is racially biased or egocentrically oriented to harm certain people or things. For instance, the United Nations has voted to limit the spread of nuclear power in fear of its indiscriminative use to destroy humankind or target certain races or regions to achieve the goal of domination. AI is possible to target certain races or some programmed objects to accomplish the command of destruction by the programmers, thus creating world disaster.
Threat to humanity
As AI gets more advanced it might find a way to escape from peoples control and start to act on its own, thus creating a huge threat to humanity as it will be able to connect to almost everything through internet and who knows, what it might come up with to put itself in the physical body.
War weapon
As AI gets more advanced some people will start using it in war as a weapon, being able to dive into internet to get information or being able to spread misinformation that humans won’t be able to understand if it is AI or not, as now it can perfectly replicate human voice and create videos that seem perfectly real. There also will be created robots operated by AI instead of humans making them perfect tool for war.
The meaning of art
AI can create art, all you have to do is to tell him what to create, write a font and he will create it for you. And this raises a question, is it really art that AI creates? Something that takes a long time for artists to draw can be created in a minute. Me personally I wouldn’t consider what AI is creating art, cause I think that art is a representation of someone’s feeling, and AI doesn’t have feelings.
Chapter Four
The Positive Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Society
There are, however, many positive impacts on humans as well, especially in the field of healthcare. AI gives computers the capacity to learn, reason, and apply logic. Scientists, medical researchers, clinicians, mathematicians, and engineers, when working together, can design an AI that is aimed at medical diagnosis and treatments, thus offering reliable and safe systems of healthcare delivery. As health professors and medical researchers endeavor to find new and efficient ways of treating diseases, not only do digital computers assist in analyzing, but robotic systems can also be created to do some delicate medical procedures with precision. Here, we see the contribution of AI to health care:
Fast and accurate diagnostics
IBM’s Watson computer has been used to diagnose with fascinating results. Loading the data to the computer will instantly get AI’s diagnosis. AI can also provide various ways of treatment for physicians to consider. The procedure is something like this: To load the digital results of the physical examination to the computer that will consider all possibilities and automatically diagnose whether or not the patient suffers from some deficiencies and illness and even suggest various kinds of available treatment.
Socially therapeutic robots
Pets are recommended to senior citizens to ease their tension and reduce blood pressure, anxiety, loneliness, and increase social interaction. Now cyborgs have been suggested to accompany those lonely old folks, even to help do some house chores. Therapeutic robots and socially assistive robot technology help improve the quality of life for seniors and the physically challenged.
Reduce errors related to human fatigue
Human error in the workforce is inevitable and often costly, the greater the level of fatigue, the higher the risk of errors occurring. Al technology, however, does not suffer from fatigue or emotional distraction. It saves errors and can accomplish the duty faster and more accurately.
Artificial intelligence-based surgical contribution
AI-based surgical procedures have been available for people to choose from. Although this AI still needs to be operated by health professionals, it can complete the work with less damage to the body. A recent study by surgeons at the Children’s National Medical Center in Washington successfully demonstrated surgery with an autonomous robot. Under the teams’ supervision, the robot skillfully performed soft-tissue surgery, precisely stitching together a pig’s bowel, the doctors claimed that the robot did better than a human would. This shows that robotically-assisted surgery can overcome human limits and improve surgery quality.
Improved radiology
The first computed tomography scanners were introduced in 1971. The first magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scan of the human body took place in 1977. By the early 2000s, cardiac MRI, body MRI, and fetal imaging became routine. The search continues for new algorithms to detect specific diseases as well as to analyze the results of scans. All those are the contributions of the technology of AI.
Virtual presence
The virtual presence technology can enable a distant diagnosis of the diseases. The patient does not have to leave his/her bed but using a remote presence robot, doctors can check the patients without actually being there. Health professionals can move around and interact almost as effectively as if they were present. This allows specialists to assist patients who are unable to travel.
More free time
As AI will progress and become better it will be able to help people with the small tasks, therefore people will have more free time that they can spend on their passions, hobbies, interests, family or friends. And the more they will be able to do what they love, the less stress they will have and the happier they will be.
Unbiased Decisions
Human beings are driven by emotions, whether we like it or not. AI on the other hand, is devoid of emotions and highly practical and rational in its approach. A huge advantage of Artificial Intelligence is that it doesn’t have any biased views, which ensures more accurate decision-making.
An example of this is AI-powered recruitment systems that screen job applicants based on skills and qualifications rather than demographics. This helps eliminate bias in the hiring process, leading to an inclusive and more diverse workforce.
Chapter five
The Challenge of Artificial Intelligence to Bioethics
Artificial intelligence ethics must be developed
Bioethics is a discipline that focuses on the relationship among living beings. Bioethics focuses its attention on the good and the right in biospheres and it can be categorized into at least three areas, the bioethics in health settings that is the relationship among humankind and the bioethics in environmental setting that is the relationship between man and the nature including animal ethics, land ethics, ecological ethics…etc. All these are concerned about relationships within and among natural existences.
As technology like AI becomes more common, we face a new challenge: figuring out how to deal with something not found in nature. Normally, when we talk about ethics (you know, what’s right and wrong), we focus on the relationships between living things or with the environment—basically, stuff that’s part of the natural world. But now, with AI, we’re dealing with things humans created, like machines and computer programs. Unlike us, AI doesn’t have feelings or a personality. People who build AI, known as AI engineers, are realizing it’s important to teach AI how to make good choices so it doesn’t accidentally cause harm. This is where the idea of «bioethics of AI» comes in. We basically have to try to make sure that AI sticks to its original purpose and doesn’t go off doing its own thing, potentially causing problems for humans and society. So, it’s like creating some guidelines to keep AI in check and make sure it behaves the way it’s supposed to.
Chapter six
The Role of AI: A Friend or Foe to Human Labor?
In the contemporary era, the integration of technology into various facets of our lives has become inevitable. While some applaud the advancements for their potential to enhance efficiency and convenience, others express concerns that technology is not merely a tool to aid humans but a force replacing them. This debate raises fundamental questions about the true nature and purpose of technology in our society.
The Role of Technology in Enhancing Efficiency:
One perspective argues that technology is a powerful force that has the capacity to amplify human capabilities and improve efficiency. Automation, artificial intelligence, and other technological advancements have significantly streamlined processes in various industries, leading to increased productivity and cost-effectiveness. Machines and algorithms can perform repetitive and mundane tasks at a much faster rate than humans, allowing individuals to focus on more complex and creative aspects of their work.
For example, in manufacturing, robots can handle intricate assembly processes, freeing up human workers to engage in tasks that require problem-solving, creativity, and critical thinking. In this sense, technology serves as a valuable tool, allowing humans to delegate routine and time-consuming tasks to machines, ultimately fostering innovation and progress.
The Human-Machine Collaboration model:
Proponents of technology argue that the true potential lies in a collaborative relationship between humans and machines. The goal is not to replace human labor but to create a symbiotic partnership that leverages the strengths of both. Human creativity, emotional intelligence, and complex problem-solving skills are complemented by the precision, speed, and efficiency of machines.
For instance, in healthcare as I have already spoken about above, diagnostic algorithms can assist doctors in analyzing medical data, enabling quicker and more accurate diagnoses. This collaborative approach allows professionals to focus on patient care and empathetic interaction, areas where machines currently lack the nuance of human understanding.
Conclusion
AI has positive and negative impact but as long as people are careful and thoughtful it won’t cause any harm. AI is here to stay in our world and we must try to enforce the AI bioethics of beneficence, value upholding, lucidity and accountability. Since AI is without a soul, its bioethics must be transcendental to bridge the shortcoming of AI’s inability to empathize. AI is a reality of the world. We have to know that we must not let computers make important decisions for us because AI as a machine will never possess human qualities such as compassion and wisdom to morally discern and judge.
In my opinion the impact of technology on human labor is a complex and multifaceted issue. While there are valid concerns about job displacement, it is essential to recognize the potential for a collaborative relationship between humans and machines. Rather than viewing technology as a mere replacement, society should strive to harness its capabilities to enhance human potential, creativity, and overall well-being. Responsible and ethical deployment of technology, coupled with a commitment to retraining and upskilling the workforce, can help strike a balance where technology serves as a valuable ally rather than a threat to human labor. Ultimately, the future relationship between humans and technology depends on our ability to shape and guide these advancements toward a shared and harmonious coexistence. Although AI designers can up-load all information, data, and program AI to function as a human being, it is still a machine and a tool. AI will always remain as AI without having authentic human feelings and the capacity to commiserate. Therefore, AI technology must be progressed with extreme caution.
Sources
https://www.3dbear.io/blog/the-impact-of-ai-how-artificial-intelligence-is-transforming-society
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7605294
https://bernardmarr.com/what-is-the-impact-of-artificial-intelligence-ai-on-society/
https://www.simplilearn.com/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-artificial-intelligence-article
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41599-023-01787-8
https://builtin.com/artificial-intelligence/risks-of-artificial-intelligence
Հերմինե Անտոնյանի գրախոսությունը կարդալուց հետո, ես վերանայեցի և շտկեցի որոշ խնդիրներ։
Գրախոսություն
Յուրի Հյուսյանի հետազոտական աշխատանքը արհեստական բանականության և նրա ազդեցությունների մասին է։ Բավականին հետաքրքիր և արդի թեմա է, սակայն սովորողը շատ մակերեսորեն է ներկայցրեն թե՛ ոլորտը, թե՛ ոլորտի արագընթաց զարգացումը, դրական և բացասական ազդեցությունները մարդկության վրա։ Կարծում եմ աշխատանքը հեռու է հետազոտական աշխատանք համարվելուց, այն ավելի շատ ռեֆերատ է։
Այնուամենայնիվ, պահված է հետազոտական աշխատանքի ստանդարտները՝ աշխատանքում ունի նախաբան, թեմային առնչվող բաժիններ, եզրակացություն և աղբյուրները, որտեղից որ օգտվել է սովորողը։
Յուրի Հյուսյան 