Blog #9: The Age of AI

 AI has become extremely prevalent in society. It’s something we can no longer ignore. Frontline on PBS does an excellent job of explaining what AI is, how it is being utilized, and where it will lead in the future.

The workplace is one of the biggest areas to be affected by AI. AI is smart and very efficient. The truth is AI powered machines can now take over work that was originally done by humans—and they can do it much faster.

This is enticing to many companies because by utilizing AI, they don’t have to hire as many people—meaning less people they must pay. However, that puts many people out of a job.

This could lead to the formation of the type of power struggle Karl Marx warned about years earlier between capital and labor. There are the few people on the top (the capitalists) who are making more money by relying on AI, and then there are the laborers who rely on the capitalists to employ them. If capitalists refuse to employ the laborers, then the laborers no longer have a true purpose in society and the capitalists have full power and control over them.

Another area of our life affected by the rise in AI is our privacy. And why is this? Well because if companies can find out as much information as possible, then they will know how to cater to our wants and needs which leads to increase in sales on their end. They can use AI to do that. Google started doing this in the early 200s and it completely saved their company.

With this new ability to know an inordinate amount of information about users, companies have learned how to alter their clientele's behavior simply by controlling what they do and don’t show them. Smart speakers are now programmed to detect the cadence and inflection of your voice in order understand your mindset and daily routine. The amount of information that these companies have on us is startling.

Currently, the Chinese government has cameras virtually everywhere. They track people’s cars, identify people’s faces, and even monitor the way people walk. The Chinese government basically surveillances every part of their citizens' life. This has resulted in Turkish Muslims living in China being put in camps because the government wants to "keep them under control."

AI can be a powerful tool, there is no doubt about it. It's virtually unavoidable, so we must learn to embrace it. But it must also be controlled. Because at the end of the day, the horrible things we see happening in China could happen anywhere.