Will advances in AI threaten human jobs and security?

In 2016, the AlphaGo vs. Lee Sedol match made waves as it demonstrated the promise of artificial intelligence. People fear that AI will take away jobs and threaten their safety. AI development should be done carefully, and transparency in the research process is important.

 

In 2016, South Korea hosted a match between AlphaGo, developed by Google’s DeepMind, and Lee Sedol 9. This is not the first time humans and AI have faced off. In 1997, IBM’s Deep Blue defeated the world chess champion. However, the number of moves in chess is 120 to the power of 10, while the number of moves in Go is 170 to the power of 10. That’s why many people favored Lee Sedol’s victory. However, AlphaGo broke the mold and defeated Lee Sedol 9 with 4 wins and 1 loss, proving that AI can beat humans in Go. The showdown caused a stir not only in the world of Go, but also in society at large. The news media reported AlphaGo’s victory day after day, and people began to clearly recognize the development trend of artificial intelligence.
Once people realized the development trend of artificial intelligence, a sense of fear began to take hold. People were frightened by the incredible performance of AI. The reasons for people’s fear can be summarized in two ways. The first is that it might take our jobs, and the second is that it might attack us. Both of these fears stem from the recognition that AI is superior to humans. Let’s start with the first reason.
Pessimists argue that as AI advances, our jobs will decrease, leading to a social and economic crisis. In fact, a study by Osborne and Frey in the UK predicted that half of current white-collar labor will be replaced by AI within 20 years, based on data from 2013. This includes telemarketers, computer entry operators, legal secretaries, bookkeepers, poll workers, accountants, insurance agents, and librarians. The jobs threatened by AI include both blue-collar and professional jobs. This is especially true in the healthcare sector. AI is making great strides in the field of diagnostic medicine, where it can automatically suggest prescriptions based on a patient’s medical information. IBM’s Watson is a prime example of AI working in diagnostic medicine. Watson, which is currently training at the MD Anderson Center, a cancer hospital, analyzed the records of 1,000 patients treated by cancer specialists and found treatment methods that cancer specialists missed in one-third of the records. In Korea, Watson has also treated more than 100 cancer patients at Incheon Gil Medical Center. When there was a conflict between the doctor and Watson, the patients mostly chose Watson’s opinion, showing that even professionals like doctors are not immune from the threat of AI.
The second reason people fear AI is the idea that it might attack us. This fear comes from movies and novels. There is an AI called Skynet from the Terminator series of movies. It perceived humans as enemies and attacked them when they tried to stop it because they were afraid of it. As AI technology improves, the idea that these movie fictions could become a reality is even more frightening to the general public. The largest sponsor of AI research is the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), a military research organization under the Pentagon, and killer robots are becoming more and more practical. Experts agree that the more the AI industry develops, the more it will be used in the military. Given this, it’s hard to argue that AI will become a threat to our safety and dominate us.
Developing A.I. is not the same as developing any other science and technology. Unlike other sciences and technologies, which can be stopped as soon as we stop researching them, A.I., once developed, will continue to learn and improve itself. Unlike other technologies, it is likely to be out of our control. That’s why we need to be careful and cautious about developing AI. We need to consider all possible risks and proceed with careful development. And we should be open about the progress of AI research to reduce people’s fears. If we prepare for the future in this way, we will have a future with fewer negative effects and more positive benefits.