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Benedict Odai

Professor Melanie Wood

ENGL 101

December 27, 2021

Artificial Intelligence: Benefits and drawback to society

Technology has been advancing at a rapid rate, with research being conducted on how we can

achieve greater things in the field of technology; we find ourselves questioning which direction

we are heading towards. Is it beneficial to society or detrimental? Artificial intelligence is a path

in which some scientists and innovators have decided to venture onto. Some people think that

artificial intelligence is like what we see in movies, where humans are able to communicate with

the computer as though it was a real human and the computer gives them a response; for

example, movies such as Iron Man. Even now the definition of artificial intelligence varies from

person to person. One of the definitions which we will look it will be based on the academic

journal ‘Should artificial intelligence be regulated?’

The One well-known definition is: ‘Artificial Intelligence is that activity devoted to

making machines intelligent, and intelligence is that quality that enables an entity to

function appropriately and with foresight in its environment.’ A popular understanding of

AI is that it will enable a computer to think like a person. Others use the term to refer to

the computers that use algorithms to process large amounts of information and draw

conclusions and learn from their experiences. (32)

During David Lorge Parnas time as a student at Carnegie Mellon University he “distinguished

three types of AI research: building programs that imitate human behavior in order to understand

human thinking; building programs that play games well; and showing that practical
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computerized products can use the methods that humans use” (27) Parnas believes that programs

that aim to imitate humans can be untrustworthy and dangerous.

It is quite complicated to state all the benefits and risks associated with artificial intelligence as it

is still in the development process and new things are being unraveled as time goes by. However,

some of the current risks and benefits are beginning to come to light. The question at hand is that

does the benefits of artificial intelligence outweigh the drawbacks? We also have to consider

how we can ensure that it doesn’t get out of hand. In this paper one will learn the current impact

of artificial intelligence on society in areas such as job acquisition, improvement in our daily

lives and the potential threats to society.

The history of artificial intelligence dates to the 1950’s. There was a test which was proposed by

Alan turning in his 1950 paper called “Computing Machinery and Intelligence.” This test was an

experiment to determine if a machine had intelligence: “The famous Turing test holds that AI is

achieved when a person is unable to determine whether a response to a question he or she asked

was made by a person or a computer”. (Amitai Etzioni and Oren Etzioni, 32). In the past, there

have been attempts at creating various types of AI and this has resulted in some being a success

and others a failure.

An example was proposed in the academic journal written by Oren Smilansky. There was an

incident during 2016 involving a chatbot called Tay:

Tay was an early prototype chatbot that was engineered by Microsoft’s own research

team. Though its intentions were noble, Tay was given the ability to learn from reams of

user behavior to formulate its own original responses. As such, it was easily corrupted,

drawing inspiration from some of the bad influences it came across. (29)
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This is a prime example of how AI can become dangerous when left unmonitored and

unregulated. In this society, if a business were to be looking at adopting AI in their day to day

operations, then they need to ensure that they have restrictions in place that will stop incidents

such as Tay's from occurring. This incident had an impact on Microsoft's reputation as the

chatbot was on twitter and it "began dishing out highly offensive comments" (Smilansky 29).

The example of Tay can be categorized as Heuristic Programming, David Lorge Parnas points

out that “An early CMU Ph.D. thesis defined a heuristic program as one that ‘does not always

get the right answer.’ Heuristic programs are based on ‘rules of thumb,’ that is, rules based on

experience but not supported by theory.” (28) Parnas goes on to say that ‘Heuristic’ is not a

desirable attribute of software. This is because humans have enough knowledge and common

sense to know the difference between right and wrong when using rules of thumb, hence when

the rules suggest doing something that is stupid, most people won’t attempt it. However,

computers lack such ‘common’ sense and will execute the program command without

questioning it. Parnas suggests that programs should have clear domains of applicability and

these domains should be documented, and trustworthy programs warn their users when they act

outside those parameters or domain. should clearly state (28). One should read the paper in more

detail if they are truly interested in situations in which heuristic programming can be applied.

Some of the positive examples of AI in society that most people use and see are; personal

assistants such as Microsoft’s Cortana on our computer and Apple’s Siri on the smart phones.

Back in 2017 the world’s number one champion in Go, Ke Jie, lost to Google’s DeepMind

artificial intelligence: AlphaGo.

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These AI programs try to learn the consumer’s behavior in order to use an algorithm to provide

better customer satisfaction; however, as we all know they are not always perfect and sometimes

we can accept it being in the wrong as it would not be detrimental to us, such as the example

with Tay.

Also, according to a statement quoted by the academic researcher Oren Smilansky “AI has been

effective at structuring large data sets and millions and millions of records, which no human

could ever do alone,” says Matt Swanson, CEO of Augment, provider of a customer experience

AI platform (29 - 30). I believe this allows AI to be beneficial to various business that deal with

large amount of data, such as contact centers and also with corporations such as Apple and

Microsoft. However, let’s not forget that AI can also be detrimental when used by someone with

ill intentions as it will be also effective at retrieving information from customers hence aiding

hackers.

There have been some benefits of AI, as pointed out by Amitai Etzioni and Oren Etzioni,

artificial intelligence is used by various organizations ranging from government employees to

academics. It is used in various appliances, such as passenger planes, industrial robots, virtual

nursing aids and many more. Amitai Etzioni and Oren Etzioni continue to point out more cases

where AI is used. “AI programs already help detect cancer, reduce the risk of airplane collisions,

and are implemented into old-fashioned (that is, nonautonomous) cars’ software that makes them

much safer…. AI is used in search and rescue missions.” (33). There are more cases where AI is

used for a beneficial purpose in society and also there was a study where a robot and a group of

surgeons were given the same task (“to sew up part of an

intestine that had been cut”), the robot ended up being able to complete 60% of the work without

assistance and the degree of accuracy was superior to the humans. This is something that could
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be used to help our surgeons in the hospital so that more lives can be saved and make our work

less stressful. They shouldn’t be created with the intention of replacing humans but instead with

the intention of assisting.

However, despite the various benefits of artificial intelligence, some people fear that AI would

pose a threat to society in a sense of security. They believe AI would allow governments to

create autonomous weapons. Elon Musk, the founder of Tesla, tweeted that: “We need to be

super careful with AI. Potentially more dangerous than nukes.” He believes that there should be

some sort of “regulatory oversight of AI” perhaps at a national and international level. (qtd. In

“Should Artificial Intelligence Be Regulated?”). He told an audience at MIT that "With artificial

intelligence, we are summoning the demon,". Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai stated that “The only

way to solve some of these deeper issues is global multilateral frameworks." He also agrees that

countries "have to agree to demilitarize AI”.

Some people argue that AI and technology as a whole has had a drastic impact on jobs and AI

will take over more jobs than it will create. Economists often discuss the impacts of AI on jobs,

some convincing evidence has been gathered which proves that technology is taking over some

jobs and this takeover is continuing to grow over the years as technology is advancing each day,

especially with the introduction of artificial intelligence. According to Amitai Etzioni and Oren

Etzioni, AI is having a negative impact on many jobs:

the introduction of stronger AI, is destroying many jobs: first blue-collar jobs (robots on

the assembly line), then white-collar ones (banks reducing their back office staff), and

now professional ones (legal research). The Bureau of Labor Statistics found that jobs in

the service sector, which currently employs two-thirds of all workers, were being
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“obliterated by technology.” From 2000 to 2010, 1.1 million secretarial jobs disappeared,

as did 500,000 jobs for accounting and auditing clerks. Other job types, such as travel

agents and data entry workers, have also seen steep declines due to technological

advances. (35)

Now what is the point of advancing technology if they are only taking away jobs? Some people

argue that the advancement of technology is going to create loads of jobs and will improve the

living standard of society. Amitai Etzioni and Oren Eztioni continue to say that these

developments are not the main problem because throughout history there has always been

advancement in technology and jobs had always been replaced: “job destruction has occurred

throughout human history, from the weaving loom replacing hand-weaving, to steam boats

displacing sail boats, to Model T cars destroying the horse-and buggy industries.” (35).

Though I agree with this statement, the problem at hand still remains; technology is developing

at a rapid rate and the jobs being created are not enough to accommodate for the people who are

losing their jobs. The jobs which are lost, such as factory work, are done by people who do not

have the finance or background knowledge to know how to be hired in the new jobs being

created. This is because the jobs which are sometimes created require one to have knowledge of

technology, so that they can provide maintenance services or operate the technology, and this is

not a skill that some people who have lost the jobs can gain instantly. The new jobs created are

also few in number as one machine would probably need one or two people to operate and this

same machine will be able to perform a task that requires perhaps 5 people to do. Hence even

though the advancement in technology brings forth new jobs, they are far too few.

Soon with more advanced and stronger AI, there might be no need for people to operate those

machines as the machine would be able to operate on its own and hence more jobs will be lost.
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Amitai Etzioni and Oren Etzioni also point out this concern that “A piece of software, written by

a few programmers, does the work that was previously carried out by several hundred thousand

people.” (35-36). More jobs in the tertiary sector are being affected now, as pointed out by

Amitai Etzioni and Oren Etzioni:

The legal field has been the latest victim, as e-discovery technologies have reduced the

need for large teams of lawyers and paralegals to examine millions of documents.

Michael Lynch, the founder of an e-discovery company called Autonomy, estimates that

the shift from human document discovery to e-discovery will eventually enable one

lawyer to do the work that was previously done by 500.

All this shows that some action is needed before things get worse. Despite people saying there

will be new jobs and we only need to train people so that we make sure everyone is part of the

process. However, those people forget that nothing is free in this world; the training will cost

money and who will fund the training? The jobs created will be for a different group of people

not those who have lost their jobs. The benefit here is to the business or firm that owns these

machines as they reduce their cost, and also perhaps we can now buy things at a cheaper price,

however at the cost of people’s jobs. Is this something we want to see in the future? Some

economists are however less worried as they believe that new jobs will come about. However,

the question is will this be enough? And how long would those who have lost their jobs have to

wait?

There have been concerns raised by innovators and researchers in various fields about the future

of artificial intelligence. Bills Gates, Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking have raised concerns

about the impact of jobs on society. According to Stephen Hawking in December [2016] “the rise

of artificial intelligence is likely to extend this job destruction deep into the middle classes, with only
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the most caring, creative or supervisory roles remaining.” Similar statement shave been said by Bill

Gates and Elon Musk. Gates believes that in 20 years jobs such as warehouse work, driving and room

cleaning will all be gone. This is true because self-driving cars have now been developed and is in the

testing phase, once this is legalized and ready to be used, then some human workers will be replaced.

There are approximately 1 million truck drivers in the US and Uber also bought a self-driving truck

company. (Larson)

Elon Musk stated that perhaps there should be a universal income to support people as they

retrain, and we start switching to AI. I personally believe this won’t be possible, at least not for

every country as most countries are currently in debt. Bill Gates believes we should tax the

robotic workers.

In conclusion artificial intelligence is something that can prove to be the greatest asset to humans

and to society; however, it can also be our greatest threat. This is because the purpose of artificial

intelligence depends on the person who created it or wields it. As some people fear governments

may use it to centralize power, we also need to think of what will happen if a group of people

with bad intentions were to get hold of such technology, for example hackers. The rest of the

world will be facing a threat to security, and privacy of their information. Personally, AI

shouldn’t be developed past a stage where it will be difficult to control. There should be a set of

rules while programming the AI so that when it acts out of its parameters, then it will be shut

down. Also, we shouldn’t try to make AI which would imitate human behaviors, not every

human is the same and some have bad habits, instead we should create AI that will do things in

its own way so that there would be flexibility. Currently there is nothing we can do to stop the

development of AI unless it is banned worldwide, because some if one country were to ban the
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development of AI then some other countries will still continue with the research and there will

still be a risk of it being misused. Hence, we should try to regulate it one way or another.

Currently various artificial intelligence businesses and academia are have come to an agreement

to prevent using AI for autonomous weapons. We should also think about what we will do to

support society as a result of the jobs that will be lost if we decide to proceed with the

implementation of AI in our work places, such as factories. Once the use of AI is adopted in

many businesses, then some countries will struggle as a result of their unemployment rate

increasing; this is because if the economy of the country isn’t strong then they will have

difficulties providing for their citizens who have been made unemployed as a result of being

replaced by AI machinery. This would result in a reduction in tax and a reduction in the funds

which the government has. All this could end up leaving the country crippled because the

government would lack the funds to build and the necessary public services to the citizens.
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Works Cited

Etzioni, Amitai and Oren Etzioni. "Should Artificial Intelligence Be Regulated?." Issues in

Science & Technology, vol. 33, no. 4, Summer2017, pp. 32-36.

Parnas, David Lorge. "The Real Risks of Artificial Intelligence: Incidents from the Early Days of

AI Research Are Instructive in the Current AI Environment." Communications of the

ACM, vol. 60, no. 10, Oct. 2017, pp. 27-31. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1145/3132724.

Smilansky, Oren. "The Real Benefits of Artificial Intelligence." CRM Magazine, vol. 21, no. 11,

Nov. 2017, pp. 28-31.

Quincy Larson, “A warning from Bill Gates, Elon Musk, and Stephen Hawking”,

medium.freecodecamp.org, Feb 19, 2017.

https://medium.freecodecamp.org/bill-gates-and-elon-musk-just-warned-us-about-the-

one-thing-politicians-are-too-scared-to-talk-8db9815fd398,

Gregory Wallace, “Elon Musk warns against unleashing artificial intelligence 'demon'”,

money.cnn.com, October 26, 2014.

http://money.cnn.com/2014/10/26/technology/elon-musk-artificial-intelligence-

demon/index.html
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Alanna Petroff, “Google CEO: AI is 'more profound than electricity or fire'”, money.cnn.com,

January 24, 2018.

http://money.cnn.com/2018/01/24/technology/sundar-pichai-google-ai-artificial-

intelligence/index.html?iid=EL