AI

When I think of AI, it scares me. I think of all the sci-fi movies I’ve watched and the books I’ve read. I think of the movie, Wall-E, and the company Buy ‘n’ Large, except for our world, it will be Amazon or a big company from Silicon Valley. This is the popular culture nerd coming out of myself, but when I was watching the documentary, In the Age of AI, it talked about how it would come down to two world leaders, America and China. It also mentioned how it would be big technology companies, like Google, that would change the world… even democracy. 

I think some inventions sound cool, but aren’t necessary. For example, like self-driving cars or trucks. I understand the reasoning behind it. I just can’t help but think about how it will take away jobs, like truck drivers or taxi drivers or even food delivery drivers. Additionally, AI taking over certain jobs, like in factories, is taking away jobs. Maybe AI could do the dangerous jobs, but machines have already taken away so many jobs. Kai-Fu Lee believes around 50% of jobs will be threatened due to AI. Lee says that AI is coming to society whether we like it or not, and that we should be prepared for it. He also says that AI will be able to take white collar jobs more easily because of being able to learn the analytical process. 

Oxford University researchers, Carl Frey and Michael Osborne researched jobs that they thought would easily be overtaken by AI. They discovered 47% of jobs could be at risk. The authors talk about how they can’t predict what, how, or when this will occur, but to look at examples of our history. Specifically, the British Industrial Revolution. 

With no increase of wages but the increase of technology, the citizens are struggling. Molly Kinder, talks of how some of the jobs AI will be taking over, are largely held by women. Furthermore, she talks of how to be able to overcome this will require learned skills, which will be left to only people who can afford them. 

From this we can gather that AI will only further divide inequality. 

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I had no idea that this documentary would touch on the Cambridge Analytica Scandal. I actually wrote a post about this and a presentation, which can be found here. 

This leads to the invasion of privacy of social media platforms or any company that may collect your information. After the scandal, this started raising awareness and change for privacy regulations. It is bringing it to our attention that we don’t have control over what is learned about us. That it is retrieved by machines and used in ways we don’t know. To me, this is super scary. I have always been hypervigilant about my social media accounts being private, not signing up for things on websites, etc. I never knew the full extent of what this type of technology could have or let alone do.

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This documentary comes full circle, because it begins talking about China and their 5G company Huawei. The US was not a fan of this technology company and has convinced other countries of the Five Eyes to also take steps to ban this company’s technology. (I also wrote a blog post about Five Eyes and Huawei.)

    Once again this documentary focuses on China and America, pitting them against each other in competition over the said backbone of AI, 5G. 

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Before taking this class, I didn't consider or research the extent of privacy when it came to technology. This truly has been an eye opening experience that has helped me learn a few things. One, value your privacy. Two, research things before buying or taking part. Three, be careful of what you're technology you're using. Four, be aware of your digital fingerprint.