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Derek Marroquin

Professor Eylicio

ENGL 115

15 November 2022

The Power of Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence has recently become a hot topic in the technology world. It is

constantly developing and with the different forms of AI being in the process of development it

can be easy for misconceptions to come out. There are a handful of people in society who think

that AI will cause all sorts of unemployment in the future or some believe that AI is a technology

that won’t go that far. Truth is, not many people really know what AI is and the benefits that

come with it. For example, technology like Siri and Alexa that have made life a bit more

convenient for others are forms of AI which can come off as a surprise to some. AI is a

technology that has already made its way into society and it will only continue to do so as our

technology develops. With more research being put into AI, society can look forward to some of

the potential benefits this technology may bring in the future.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is a type of technology where you hear the word and think of

robots. It could be robots who can complete a type of job or maybe robots who have human

feelings. According to Nick Heath, “AI systems demonstrate at least some of the following

behaviors associated with human intelligence: planning, learning, reasoning, problem solving,

knowledge representation, perception, motion, and creativity. (Paragraph 7)” As long as this

technological system can do at least one of those things listed then it can be considered AI. An

example of this could be Siri on an Iphone as Siri shows some knowledge representation when

you ask it a question. To add on, there are at least four different types of AI on a basic level
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which are Reactive Machines, Limited Memory, Theory of Mind, and Self-Awareness. These

four types of AI all have some sort of uniqueness to them and may sound familiar.

According to Sunny Betz, Reactive Machines are “... just reactionary. They can respond

to immediate requests and tasks, but they aren’t capable of storing memory or learning from past

experiences. (Paragraph 4)” Basically think of this like chess, checkers, or any kind of computer

game where you go up against a computer. The more you play against the computer the more

you realize that it's a pattern therefore making it easier for you to win. Some strategies may

change but the computer’s strategy doesn’t because it can’t learn from the past since it’s not

programmed to. That’s why Reactive Machine is exactly what its name suggests, it’s a machine

that reacts to its environment/code but nothing more.

Another type of AI that relates slightly to Reactive Machines that Betz writes about is

limited memory. Betz says, “Limited memory AI can be applied in a broad range of scenarios,

from smaller scale applications such as chatbots, to self-driving cars and other advanced use

cases. (Paragraph 12)” Think of this like a brain. It can hold up and memorize many things but

the power that this AI has it can memorize certain things like an image and make it even better

and more accurate than it originally was and store it which makes it a learning experience. Both

of these technologies, despite the limited coding in their program, can be used under many

circumstances.

A different type of AI from the other two is called Theory of Mind. Betz explains that

“The concept of AI that can perceive and pick up on the emotions of others hasn’t been fully

realized yet. This concept is referred to as ‘theory of mind’, a term borrowed from psychology

that describes humans’ ability to read the emotions of others and predict future actions based on

that information. (Paragraph 16)” Many technologies aren’t able to pick up on certain emotions
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and cues like humans are able to, but it is a theoretical concept for now. The fourth type of AI

that relates to Theory of Mind is Self-Awareness, which is also the AI that involves robots being

almost “human” that people are really afraid of. The reason for this is because many have the

idea that if robots are self-aware like humans then they may take over the world like in the movie

“I,Robot” directed by Alex Proyas . Luckily Betz states, “Robot armies, mechanical overlords,

sentient humanoids — there’s no divorcing public perception of AI from its sci-fi reputation. But

with so many leaps left between limited memory and theory of mind, Rogenmoser said the real

science fiction, where robots reach a near-human level of intelligence, is thankfully still very far

off. (Paragraph 24)” Even though we are still far from developing self-aware AI we can still use

the other types of AI and try to use them to help change our society. Whether it be for the better

or worse it is important to look at both sides to see what we can expect with this constantly

developing technology.

AI can both be seen as a positive in our near future to having a negative impact on

society. When it comes to the positives of AI there are a various amount of technologies that

seem promising for the future of computers. For example, AI could possibly detect fraud if

constructed correctly and businesses could use AI to expand their business to create products that

the public likes. According to a scholarly article written by Iqbal Sarker titled “AI-Based

Modeling: Techniques, Applications and Research Issues towards Automation, Intelligent and

Smart Systems.”, he explains that, “AI revolution, like earlier launch revolutions that launched

massive economic activity in manufacturing, commerce, transportation, and other areas, has the

potential to lead the progress. (Paragraph 1)” Sarker means that the AI revolution can be thought

of as other global revolutions that have shaped our society today. There was the industrial

revolution where in the beginning was thought to have potential and now it is a staple in what
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many businesses use everyday, so he says the same can be thought of with AI. He also states, “

Existing products or services can be enhanced by industrial AI to make them more effective,

reliable, and safe. For example, computer vision is used in the automotive industry to avoid

collisions and allow vehicles to stay in their lane, making driving safer. (Paragraph 10)” AI has a

massive potential to impact our society positively, furthermore he explains that “the world's most

powerful nations are hurrying to jump on the AI bandwagon and are increasing their investments

in the field. (Paragraph 10)” The essence of this is that with the massive potential AI has, the

nations have realized how useful AI can be and decided to join the following of AI so they can

have even bigger investments. AI seems to be useful for big businesses but it can also have a

positive effect for people as well.

Additionally, it is important to consider why AI is important to us. This is because as

each day passes humans continue to invent new things that will help make our lifes a bit easier

and AI is one of them. Living in a world where technology is starting to become the new normal,

people are actively looking for ways to make AI a positive change in society like trying to use

healthcare. In this scholarly article called “The Potential for Artificial Intelligence in

Healthcare”,written by Thomas Davenport and Ravi Kalakota, they discuss how AI is being used

in healthcare. They state, “in healthcare, the most common application of traditional machine

learning is precision medicine-predicting what treatment protocols are likely to succeed o a

patient based on various patient attributes and the treatment contexts. (Paragraph 5)” What

they’re implying is that with the help of AI we are able to predict on which kind of treatment

doctors should give to their patients without the risk of giving them the wrong medicine or a

different kind of illness that’s even worse than the current one. Since healthcare is becoming

busier the more time passes with longer wait times and not enough staffing AI can be used in this
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manner, I believe it could help those not only working healthcare but also the patients. Another

good reason why AI is very useful to us is because many times we get tired of doing repetitive

and mundane tasks. In this article written by Alina Bradford called “Will Robots Take Your Job?

How Artificial Intelligence Will Change the Future of Work”, she states, “as more and more of

the mundane tasks people are forced to do in the name of productivity become intelligently

automated using AI, people will be free to do what we all do best and what makes us happiest:

creative problem-solving. (Paragraph 9)” What she is explaining is that with those tasks people

are ‘forced’ to do, we can let the AI do it instead which will not only stop people from being

forced to do said tasks but this allows people to have more time to make more solutions to

certain problems and focus their energy on that. This is why AI is important because not only it

can solve problems but it can also give us huge quality of life improvements and more time to

come up with new ways to solve current problems. Of course, with every good thing that exists

there is always a downside to them and the same goes for AI.

We all know that when it comes to AI it is no surprise that there are some negatives to it,

the obvious being “robots are going to replace humans”. Although there is that small chance that

robots could end up replacing humans in the workplace there are other worries that people have

with AI. One negative drawback is how AI can spread some false information. From an article

written by Kathleen Walch called “Ethical Concerns of Ai”, she mentions, “these bots are

effective at spreading false or heavily altered facts, amplifying messages, and putting thoughts

and ideas into people’s heads. Criminals and state actors can use fake imagery or audio to cause

personal business harm or to interfere with government operations. (Paragraph 4)” What she is

trying to say is that with this kind of false information and altered facts it can most likely result

into a scam which could end up leaking some personal information or ruin a business. Another
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potential negative that could affect millions of people is if AI isn’t regulated enough. In an article

written by Daron Acemoğlu titled “Dangers of Unregulated Artificial Intelligence”, he mentions,

“For one, online platforms may come to control excessive amounts of information about their

users, because when they buy or acquire the data of some users, this also provides information

about the other users. (Paragraph 7)” This is already an issue that many are worried about now

with big corporations getting our personal information when we use the internet. Getting

personal information and using that to sell to other companies is already an issue the public is

fighting about but if AI isn’t regulated then many fear this issue will only grow.

Even with these negatives we still use AI everyday whether it’ll be for the good or for the

worse. We are still using it for our phone, scrolling through social media, while we're working

and so much more. Despite people saying robots will take over the world and replace everything,

it is still too early to jump ahead since we still don’t know what's going on with AI since it’s still

in development. AI has brought us many quality of life improvements that we can’t ignore

because if we didn’t have them we would still be struggling with other things like credible

sources, better business and even online classes which made it possible for many to learn while

being at home throughout the pandemic. There are still many worries that people have whether

that be ethical issues or technological failures, but it is expected when it comes to the unknown

or something fairly new. By learning about what AI is and what are the potential benefits then

more people will be knowledgeable when new AI technologies are created for society. With the

many resources AI has we will still keep on using it to this day and continue to make us wonder

what the future will end up looking like.

In conclusion, AI is a complicated technology that has many different versions. There are

so many ideas that could be developed but there is still so much to be done before moving
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forward. There are positives and negatives such as using AI in healthcare or worrying about

personal information being used unethically. Even so, there is so much funding going into this

technology and we are bound to see them in the future and maybe use it in our everyday lives.

Having a slight idea on what AI is, the potential uses for it, the positives and negatives, we now

have a better understanding of what AI can bring to our society.

Acemoğlu, Daron. “Dangers of Unregulated Artificial Intelligence.” CEPR, 23 Nov. 2021,

https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/dangers-unregulated-artificial-intelligence.

Betz, Sunny. “4 Types of Artificial Intelligence.” Built In, 25 Aug. 2022,

https://builtin.com/artificial-intelligence/types-of-artificial-intelligence.

Bradford, Alina. “Will Robots Take Your Job? How Artificial Intelligence Will Change the

Future of Work.” Reader's Digest, Reader's Digest, 27 Sept. 2022,

https://www.rd.com/article/future-of-ai/.

Davenport, Thomas, and Ravi Kalakota. “The Potential for Artificial Intelligence in

Healthcare.” Future Healthcare Journal, U.S. National Library of Medicine, June 2019,

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6616181/.

Duggal, Nikita. “Top Advantages and Disadvantages of Artificial Intelligence [2022

Edition].” Simplilearn.com, Simplilearn, 1 Aug. 2022,

https://www.simplilearn.com/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-artificial-intelligence-articl

e#advantages_of_artificial_intelligence.

Heath, Nick. “What Is Ai? Here's Everything You Need to Know about Artificial

Intelligence.” ZDNET, 23 July 2021,

https://www.zdnet.com/article/what-is-ai-heres-everything-you-need-to-know-about-artifici

al-intelligence/.
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Sarker, Iqbal H. “AI-Based Modeling: Techniques, Applications and Research Issues

towards Automation, Intelligent and Smart Systems.” SN Computer Science, U.S. National

Library of Medicine, 10 Feb. 2022,

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8830986/.

Shead, Sam. “How A.I. Is Set to Evolve in 2022.” CNBC, CNBC, 7 Jan. 2022,

https://www.cnbc.com/2022/01/07/deep-learning-and-large-language-how-ai-is-set-to-evol

ve-in-2022.html.

Tai, Michael Cheng-Tek. “The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on Human Society and

Bioethics.” Tzu Chi Medical Journal, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 14 Aug. 2020,

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7605294/.

Walch, Kathleen. “Ethical Concerns of AI.” Forbes, Forbes Magazine, 12 Oct. 2022,

https://www.forbes.com/sites/cognitiveworld/2020/12/29/ethical-concerns-of-ai/?sh=5e802

3f223a8.