MA Digital Media Technology and Cultural Form

Master Thesis

Title: Towards understanding the impacts of Artificial Intelligence on society: The

Positive and Negative Side of AI to humankind

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 Acknowledgements
I acknowledge the immense contribution, guidance and resourcefulness of several individuals

who inspired me directly or indirectly throughout the course of study. I am deeply indebted to

my thesis supervisor, who gave me invaluable advice through emails and offered me insight

on how to conduct my thesis. He supported me throughout my thesis with his excellent

guidance, caring, patience and knowledge. I would also like to extend thanks to all the faculty

members of schools for their support. Finally, I would like to thank my parents for their

adoration and unconditional support in the journey of academic life.

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 Abstract
With the rapid development of technology over the past decade, AI (Artificial

Intelligence) has shown a positive uptake both industrial and in the academic field. There has

been a boom in the innovations that are powered by artificial intelligence at its base.

Undoubtedly, the internet was seen to be the back-borne of internet based connected devices

that implements artificial intelligence in executing tasks. It is explained that AI is a technology

which is progressively being employed in society and economy around the world, and is poised

to become dominant in future. AI is progressively being implanted in our lives, enhancing our

unavoidable utilization of digital technologies. However, AI is being accompanied by

anxiousness over hazardous and perilous usage of AI. The research will highlight the impacts

of socio-economic and political applications of artificial intelligence in the selected field of

manufacturing, military, agriculture and processing industry. The research findings has also

proved that developing countries with low income economy are struggling in utilising the state

of the art digital AI solutions while high income countries are fully utilising the smart cutting

edge of AI. The life-changing impact of AI on communities can have expansive social-

economic, political and regulative ramifications that we must always examine and set up for

but as a positive thinker in spite of appearance. The research will clearly highlight the positive

and negative impacts of AI in communities

The study will provide a critical assessment of the positive and negative effects of AI

in society from political and socio-economic perspectives. The research will employ a

qualitative method rather than quantitative method and theoretical approach in investigating

whether AI is the panacea to public service delivery. To validate the research findings, the

researcher will use three central questions that is, what are the socio-economic impacts of AI

in society? Discuss the socio-political impacts of AI in society? How to overcome the

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associated challenges and risks that are in within the perimeter using AI solutions? The

hypothesis of the research states that AI is impacting the communities by offering good services

that bring many benefits for our modern society but along with the positive impacts there will

inevitably be negative implications.

Keywords: Artificial Intelligence, impacts, society and humankind

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 Table of Contents
Acknowledgements .................................................................................................................... 2

Abstract ...................................................................................................................................... 3

Table of Contents ....................................................................................................................... 5

1 Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 6

1.1 What is AI? - Clarifying the basic concept of AI ........................................................ 8

1.2 AI and Ethics ............................................................................................................. 10
2 Review of socio-economic impacts of AI ........................................................................ 11

2.1 AI Applications in Society ........................................................................................ 11

2.1.1 AI in Healthcare, Disease Prevention, Natural Disasters Prediction and
Mitigation ......................................................................................................................... 11
2.1.2 AI in Education .................................................................................................. 14
2.1.3 AI in Financial Services .................................................................................... 16
2.1.4 AI in Agriculture ................................................................................................ 18
2.2 Social, Economic and Ethical implications ............................................................... 20
2.2.1 Impact of AI in Labour market .......................................................................... 20
2.2.2 Social Inequality ................................................................................................ 21
2.2.3 The Fallibility and Bias of AI ............................................................................ 23
3 Socio-political impacts of AI ............................................................................................ 24

3.1 AI and military .......................................................................................................... 24

3.2 AI in government ...................................................................................................... 27
3.3 Unprecedented challenge to democracy and threat to human rights ......................... 29
4 Recommendations on how address the risks and challenges associated with AI ............. 32

5 Conclusion ........................................................................................................................ 35

6 References ........................................................................................................................ 37

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1 Introduction
The main aim of the study is to examine and assess the significant impact of AI in society

for the sole purpose of avoiding potential risks associated with application of AI and proffer

recommendations on the positive use of AI applications. This study will provide solutions on

how to overcome the risks associated with AI application. People in the future may glance back

at the past and recognize it as one of significant change. In a couple of short decades, there has

been a change from a machine-based society to a data based society, and as this Information

Age keeps on developing, society has been compelled to build up another and personal

commonality with information driven and algorithmic frameworks. The term artificial agents

is used to allude to machines and decision making assistants that depend on high tech

mechanization, data directed, or algorithmic learning procedures (Osoba&WelserIV,n.d). The

growth of AI technology has allowed more development of its application area from

economics, health care, military, politics manufacturing to daily business processes. This

technological movement, credited to AI, would encourage human-to-machine collaborations,

change the rationale of plans of action, and redesign the way of life and expectations for

everyday comforts of the human. AI was introduced so that we live in a smart world that

executes work in a faster that the old traditional methods. The AI technological innovations are

making our lives easier for example, the application of Google maps for navigation, disease

prediction by the application of data mining methodologies, smart shopping (online buying)-

it implements AI predictions as well as cost estimations and so on ( Soni, et al, n.d). AI has

been embraced by the world and colossal amounts of funds have been invested in AI research

because of its interesting discoveries and modern technology mammoths like Google, Amazon

which are one of the motivations in the field today. However, the fast development and

enthusiasm that this technology provides blind us from examining the impact of AI in our

society (Hussein, 2019). There are many kinds of application of AI in society today which

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includes dealing with our environment, economy, security, infrastructure, food production,

healthcare, and to a greater extent even our personal activities have become an application area

for AI. Computer based intelligence systems (AI) advances have incontestable to be amazingly

current at spans innovative, social and monetary frameworks reciprocally anyway due to the

ever in progress and spread of an arrangement of interlinked advances like transistors,

distributed storage, big data investigation programming framework and so on. Schatsky et al

have pointed out that AI assembled energy to progressively change socio-technological system

due to the interconnected technologies (Schatsky et. al, 2017).

Also, technologies upheld AI will amendment correction this political perspective sharing

progressively inconspicuous styles of political investment on the far side decisions prominently

inside the rising in general setting of boundless introduction of administration information on-

line. The utilization of AI has brought about the expanded revelation of open data that can be

uninhibitedly used and shared along these lines thereby improving straightforwardness, and

assessment of government exercises. In this manner AI related advancements and public data,

when blended would along these lines have the option to reshape the current political

atmosphere thus for example, making law based space for political cooperation past democratic

procedures.

However, while AI normally increases efficiency and productivity, it may also reduce the

existing employment opportunities. Literature have also showed that decision makers are

extremely worried over the fate of labour in both created and creating economies all around. It

is recognised that AI and automation can increase the productivity of most workers but

simultaneously it can substitute the work done by others and will likely change almost all kinds

of jobs at least to some degree. Furthermore, the automation is now dominating in a time of

increasing economic imbalance, inciting fears of massive technological unemployment and a

renewed call for strengthened public policy to address the implications of technological

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development (Franka et al., 2019). It is also alleged that AI also threatens to infringe on our

personal privacy and way of life as more and more banks and corporations including the

government gather as much information about us as possible, and as voice and facial

recognition monitors our every move, we give up more and more of our privacy (Ma, 2019).

Therefore, having considered the risks associated with AI, one might be tempted to argue that

AI brings more harm than good to humankind. AI guarantees a lot and its improvement

recommends it will keep on prospering in a way that is helpful for everything except it must be

as valuable as the manner in which its information is given and overseen Ma (2019).

1.1 What is AI? - Clarifying the basic concept of AI

Researchers have defined AI as the improvement of computer frameworks that can perform

errands that would require human knowledge stated by agreement. Literature has pointed out

that the majority of humankind be it the ranks or files have a conviction that AI is merely robots.

Papadimitriou in 2016 defined AI in terms of the logic, algorithms and mathematical

formulations that are involved in an AI environment (Papadimitriou, 2016). It has been

portrayed as the capacity of PC or other machine to perform activities thought to require

information and among these activities are coherent finding, enlistment, advancement, the

ability to settle on choices reliant on past experience or lacking or clashing data, and

furthermore the ability to grasp communicated in language. Merriam defined AI as an area of

software engineering or computer science that manages giving machines the capacity to show

up as they have human knowledge (Merriam, 2019). But from an anthropological perspective,

AI is best appreciated as a techno social framework suggesting that the specialized highlights

of AI are normally and firmly connected with its social perspectives. Consequently social

qualities and assumptions model how we see, plan, and use AI. Hussein proposes that AI can

be committed as activity of making machine astute and that intelligence can be viewed as the

quality that empowers an entity to operate properly. Theoretical understanding, big data and

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development in computing power empowers AI strategies to be a fundamental part of

innovative transformation and in assisting with taking care of complex problems we face in our

daily life. In 1985 Trappl argues that the most broadly acknowledged meaning of AI is making

computer version variant of human insight and it may be embodied as structuring machines

that encapsulated human shrewd conduct (Trappl, 1985).

Besides, one of the most significant areas in AI is knowledge delineation. The movement

of the web and the appearance of the Web during the 90's gotten unprecedented advancement

various fields yet made the issue of immense amount of information data which was later

characterized as large information (Leary, 2013). Data is figured to be the knowledge of AI

and calculations which are basic pieces of information handling. Simulated intelligence cannot

work without information so it debilitates information so as to learn. Large information is along

these lines characterized as solid harmonization of information that is presently accessible for

this reason and this monstrous information can be investigated by machines. The delineation

of information and knowledge prompted one of the primary research fields of AI, which is

called machine learning. According to Robin Gandy (1996), Turing is of the opinion that

machines would in the end execute the same actions discharged by a human intellect (Millican

et .al, 1996). AI can be comprehended as frameworks that might suspect like people, act like

people, think soundly and act intelligently. Also, AI is viewed as all the more a field than only

a basic describable expression and it tends to be classified into numerous subfields, for

example, AI, machine learning, mechanical autonomy, neural systems and vision. Therefore,

it is suggested that AI is a configuration of technologies (Daniell et. al, 2018). In addition to

that, there is indispensable hybrid in relationship with regions of AI field where AI additionally

draws from fields beside software engineering which incorporates theory, brain science,

psychological science neuroscience, intellectual science, etymology, rationale and likelihood

Harry machine learning is an application of AI, it is explained as computer calculations which

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have the ability to learn in execution for a while on some tasks .Smith and Neupane(2018)

explains that machine systems, for example, profound and support learning, permits AI

applications to take in through engrossing information from existing information records or

criticism from relationship with their condition. It is important to note that this learning is

primarily based on statistical process that operates with massive data and strive to acquire a

method that describe and predicts the data. Thus the ensuing output is called a model. Another

subset of AI is profound realizing which is characterized as an AI framework that uses neural

systems that are motivated by the human insight. Therefore, one might be tempted to concur

with the definition of AI provided by R Trappl that AI is perfectly making computer versions

of human intelligence. It might be encapsulated as designing machines that simulate the

behaviour human intelligence..

1.2 AI and Ethics

Leslie, D. (2019) defines AI ethics as set of principles, values and methods that make use

of universally stipulated and accepted standards of right and wrong to direct good conduct in

the growth and usage of AI technologies. Technology establishments and governments are

therefore progressively advancing ethical principles in order to tackle ethical and social

implications of AI. A genuine discussion about AI ethics must therefore start with an inquiry

of crucial terms; AI, culture, and ethics (Hagerty, Rubinov). It is argued that AI is defined by

its social context with regards to its growth and usage. Ethics are ultimately inseparable from

culture. Consequently, it is sheltered to state that it is hard to comprehend the effects and morals

of AI without understanding the social society in which it is embedded. John K. Roth, has

stated that morals isn't sufficient there no basic reaffirmation of morals since though nothing

lamentable had been occurred. Thus society needs ethics of AI beyond cultures in order to

tackle risks that emanates from the usage of AI. Literature has proved that it is encouraged to

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fully utilize AI with full understanding of AI advantages and challenges. Other researcher

defined the ethics of artificial intelligence as the moral responsibility of humakind to be able

to create, design and the implementation of an AI system. According to Evans, Woody (2015),

people should have robot rights and moral obligations with regards to their intelligent machines.

Joanna Bryson has contended that structuring AI that requirements rights is both unnecessary,

however it would in itself be not moral and become a weight to the human culture. The moral

approach and stage for capable AI advancement conveyance requires certain core values called

Fast Track Principles and they are comprised of four focal ideas: Fairness, Accountability,

Sustainability, and Transparency that facilitate a direction to the dependable creation and

utilization of AI innovations. The aim and purposes of these Fast Track Principles are to give

moral and practical tools, to guarantee that any AI venture is unprejudiced, reasonable and non-

discriminatory, and to secure open trust in any AI undertaking's ability to give sheltered and

great AI development (D, 2019). Consequently there is have to focus on thoughts of AI morals

and wellbeing to deal with the dangers related with AI and to coordinate the headway of AI

frameworks toward best open advantage. So the reason for the AI morals is principally to

handle scope of individual and cultural damages that the evil use, misuse, helpless plan, or

following negative accidental results of AI frameworks.

2 Review of socio-economic impacts of AI

2.1 AI Applications in Society
2.1.1 AI in Healthcare, Disease Prevention, Natural Disasters Prediction and
Mitigation
AI is playing a critical role in the health sector, it helps in the early detection of diseases

and the spread of viruses. It also helps those in the medical field in the decision-making process

so as to enhance the best treatments and medications for their clients, thus therefore saving

humankind. There is no doubt that AI will also facilitate individualized health care and

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exactitude medicine while fuelling self monitoring tools, trackers and application. AI in

healthcare is the utilization of complex software and algorithms to imitate human perception

in the analysis, interpretation, and understanding of complex health care and medical data.

(“Artificial Intelligence in Health Care”, n.d). The chief aim of AI health related applications

is to examine relationships between prevention or treatment systems and patient results. The

complication and increase of data in healthcare simply means that AI will progressively be

applied within the field and the fundamental classifications of applications include diagnosis

and treatment recommendations, patient commitment, adherence, and administrative acts.

Research studies suggests that AI can perform as well as or more effective than humans at

crucial healthcare tasks, for example diagnosing disease (Kalakota& Davenport, 2019). In

today's society, algorithms have already surpassed radiologists at detecting virulent tumours,

and guiding researchers in how to build cohorts for costly clinical trials. Furthermore, to prove

the point that the application of AI in health is bringing more good to humanity, scientists

developed an image-analysis algorithm for the California Health Care Foundation that has the

ability to examine optical scans of diabetic patients and learn to identify elusive symptoms of

diabetes-linked retinal impairment with percent accuracy, quicker than traditional human

examination and without the need to send scans to a lab (Castro & New, 2016). Additionally,

Castro and New revealed that an automated Auto scope uses an artificial neural network to

swiftly examine blood samples in the field and accurately detect malaria. Traditional swift

diagnostic methods can only detect if the availability of malaria parasite in a blood sample,

which does not necessarily translate into a person contracting the disease. It is said that auto

scope can identify the differences between certain particles in a blood sample to evaluate the

number of malaria parasites in order to determine whether a diagnosis is justified. Moreover,

Castro and New discovered that researchers at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Centre

have created a machine-learning technique to assess if a patient is likely to engage in a clinical

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trial. The system evaluated the subjective and objective factors with regard to a patient, such

as health conditions, age, race, and frame of mind toward medical research. By comprehending

these factors will make a patient more likely to be engaged and medical researchers can

successfully identify patients for trials that could help make valuable treatments However,

while AI provides a number of practicable benefits, risks and challenges associated with

application of AI in health sector continue to exist such as injuries and error, data availability

and privacy concerns. The undeniable risk is that AI will sometimes be faulty thereby resulting

in inflicting harm on a patient. Another set of risks emanate from the issue of loss of privacy.

The need of big data sets produces stimulus for developers to gather such data from patients

but some patients may be worried that this collection of data violates their right to privacy.

Researchers has suggested that if we want to capitalise on the use of AI, there should be enough

infrastructure to be invested in the healthy sector. Moreover researchers at Boston Children’s

Hospital developed HealthMap a disease-tracking website that utilizes AI to automatically

assess news narratives in various languages. HealthMap’s algorithm spotted reports of Ebola-

related symptoms on Guinean and Kenyan news platforms regardless of the fact that the articles

did not mention Ebola, for more than seven days before the epidemic was detected to be Ebola

(Castro&New). The application of AI was also witnessed in response to the dengue outbreak

of 2011 in Punjab, Pakistan where a disease surveillance system was created to give advance

caution of future outbreaks. The Punjab Intelligent Disease Surveillance System utilizes

arithmetical learning algorithms to evaluate data from news sources and dengue hotline

providing government agencies and hospitals real-time epidemic tracking with a high level of

geographic detail (Ahmad et al. 2013).Recently, Thailand has deployed K9 robots in shopping

centres to protect shoppers from COVID-19. It was witnessed that K9 robots monitored the

floor of a mall with sanitizer fastened to their back ready to hand out to any passing customer

(Siobhan Robbins, 2020). According to Butera and Sguazzin (2020), Rwanda an African

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country recently launched the use of robots in the fight against corona virus and these case

studies prove the point that AI is bringing more good to humanity.

In addition to that, AI can be utilized to forecast natural disasters with vast amounts of

quality datasets. AI has the capacity to predict natural disasters such as hurricanes, earthquakes,

floods, and volcano eruptions. Researchers collect vast quantity of unstable seismic data for

examination using deep learning techniques and AI will then employ the seismic data to assess

the immensity and patterns of earthquakes and the analysed data becomes beneficial through

predicting the happening of earthquakes(Cognitive World, 2019“How AI can and Will Predict

Disasters”). Various researchers and experts have since developed AI powered applications

with the help of flood stimulations and precipitation data to forecast and track flooding. AI has

also proven to be an effective tool in predicting the occurrence of natural disasters through

accurately forecasting volcanic eruptions with the help of geological and seismic data.

However, it is argued that one of the limitations of AI is that it is unable to compete with

humans in terms of quality of prediction but it can contest with humans in the volume and

speed of operations. There are also possibilities of AI making errors because the data inputted

into system is gathered by humans, which, can be flawed.

2.1.2 AI in Education
Education is paramount and the promise of AI in education is substantial, as it upholds

human and social development. However, regardless of huge benefits toward attaining enlarged

education for all, educational systems in poor or failed countries continue experience numerous

challenges, including inadequate or poor-quality resources and a shortage of highly-trained

teachers. AI systems can be wielded to underpin the duties and responsibilities of tutors,

teachers, and administrators to enhance the teaching and learning methods and process to make

it student-centred and personalised, a centre development required for renewing education.

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According to Benard Marr, AI has been very useful in the field education mainly in some tools

that facilitate development of skills and testing systems. As AI academic solutions are still

mature, the hope is that AI will facilitate filling the gaps in learning and teaching and enable

teachers and educational institutions to maximize their efforts. Benard Mar further stated AI

will propel efficiency, individualization and smooth run administrative tasks granting teachers

the freedom and time to provide understanding and flexibility. Therefore, the vision for AI in

education is one where teachers and AI work collaborate to achieve the best outcome for the

students. In addition to that, AI systems can help create worldwide classrooms available to all

including those who speak dissimilar languages or who might have visual or hearing disability.

AI technologies are being employed to customise and individualise learning for each individual

student. Through the use of machine learning based on personalization, AI systems are being

utilized to advance a tradition learning profile of each student and tailor the learning materials

for each student on the basis of their ability, preferred method of learning, and experience. It is

believed that 47% of learning administrative tools will be powered by AI capabilities by 2024

(Schmelzer, 2019). It is suggested that one method to offer personalized learning is through

intelligent tutoring systems (ITS), which is also called cognitive tutors. An I.T.S. is commonly

an expert system that strives to revive one-on-one instruction through adjusting and

individualizing the learning experience to the individual student. Furthermore, I.T.S evaluates

each student’s performance within the interactive environments and advance their knowledge,

skills, and expertise. On the basis of student model, I.T.S can customise educational strategies,

in terms of the style, content, and offers relevant descriptions, hints, instances, demonstrations,

and practical to individual learners (Phobun&Vicheanpanya 2010). In addition to that, teachers

are employing the increased utilization of voice assistants in the learning environment which

includes Apple Siri, Amazon Alexa, Microsoft Cortana and Google Home are giving the

students an opportunity to get access to educational materials without the interaction of the

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educator (Schmelzer). Moreover, administrators for education are also benefitting from AI with

administrative tasks by employing intelligent assistants to assist with a variety of administrative

needs such as purchasing and procurement activities, budgeting, student applications and

recruitment, course administration, HR related tasks, expense management, and facilities

management. However, this level of sophistication does not come without risks. Joe Fatheree,

an award winning teacher believes that we need to embrace AI application in education but

with a degree of caution. He cited risks such as depression, potential detrimental effects for the

human psyche, issues of privacy and other ethical implications.

2.1.3 AI in Financial Services

AI has provided the whole industry of banking and finance, a method to meet the

increased demands of clients who need intelligent, more appropriate, safer ways to access,

spend, save and invest their money. AI in finance is changing the way we interconnect with

money and it is assisting the financial industry to smooth run and enhance processes varying

from credit decisions to quantitative trading and financial risk control (Schroer, 2020). AI has

great capacity to bring positive impact if corporate utilizes it with due diligence, caution, and

care. Furthermore, AI has brought multiple benefits into the finance industry for example,

enhancing efficiency, productivity through automation, reducing human biases and mistakes

caused by psychological or emotional factors and boosting the quality and conciseness of

management of information by identifying either anomalies or longer-term trends that cannot

be easily spotted by current reporting methods (Raman & Lam, n.d). It is further stated that

these applications are peculiarly beneficial when new regulations, such as the European Union

Markets in Financial Instruments Directive II (MiFID II), extend senior management’s level of

responsibility to analyze and consider finest data from within the firm. Nevertheless, if

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organisations fail to exercise caution and care in AI applications, they will become vulnerable

to possible risks and challenges which includes bias and error in input data, process and result

when profiling customers and scoring credit, and due diligence risk in the supply chain. Raman

and Lam therefore suggest that AI users’ must have in-depth understanding of the data that has

been utilized to train, test, improve and use their AI systems.

According to OECD (2019), large companies such as JPMorgan, Citibank, State Farm

and Liberty Mutual are swiftly utilising AI and the same applies for start-ups including Zest

Finance, Insurify, WeCash, CreditVidya and Aire. Financial service organisations are

integrating various machine learning practices such as, French start-up QuantCube Technology

which examines several billion data points gathered from over 40 countries. It uses language

processing, deep learning, graph theory and more to develop AI solutions for decision making

in financial corporate. The financial services industry has for long period of time been using

statistical approaches for various goals, such as calculating down-payment figures and

evaluating the risk of default. Credit scoring is a statistical review done by financial institutions

to examine a client’s credit-worthiness. In other words, it examines the likelihood of a borrower

defaulting on her or his debt obligations. In long established credit-scoring types, analysts make

speculations concerning the credits affecting a credit score and create client section. Neural

network systems have allowed the examination of huge quantities of data gathered from credit

reports and this enables perfect analysis of the most relevant factors and of their relationships

to be conducted. In AI systems, algorithms based on vast quantity of data automatically dictate

the leveraging of neural networks, clients sections and their weights. It is stated that deep-

learning techniques have the capacity to analyse data in new ways and enhance accuracy of

predictions by up to 15% (OECD, 2019).

In the People’s Republic of China, Zeng, 2018, AI has propelled its loan success and

helped to process the vast amount of transaction data made by small businesses on its platform..

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Hence AI is bringing more benefits to humanity through its application in financial services.

AI can quickly identify and prevent fraud. It has also improved accuracy by significantly

reducing false positives and false negatives. AI has delivered a more personalised experience

to customers. Nevertheless, the use of alternative data may raise concerns about dissimilar

impact, privacy, and security and explain ability. Again there are also concerns over the

suitability of utilizing big data in customer profiling and credit scoring. It is debated that the

aforementioned concerns often have financial and legal consequences plus carrying

reputational risks. So the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) grants EU citizens the

right of information and access, the right to restrict the processing of their data, the right of

correction, the right of portability, the right to be forgotten, and to restriction of profiling. But,

it is not clear on how easily individuals can choose not to share their data for customer profiling

and it is also ambiguous whether opting out will have an effect on individuals’ credit scoring

(Raman & Lam).

2.1.4 AI in Agriculture
AI in agriculture is assisting farmers to enhance their efficiency and lessen

environmental harmful impacts. In many some countries, agriculture is the backbone to a

thriving economy, and most of the people depends on agriculture as a source of food.

However, healthy crops and harvests are prone disease, insects, and drought. AI systems

remain a solution which can provide critical understanding and solutions that can boost the

quality and efficiency of agricultural activities. The agriculture industry has firmly and publicly

accepted AI into their activities to change the overall result. AI has transformed the way our

food is produced where the agricultural sector’s emanation have lowered by 20 %( Gupta,

2019). The adaptation AI technology has fundamentally helped to monitor and manage any

unwanted natural condition and today, the majority of start-ups in agriculture are

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accommodating AI-powered approach to enhance the efficiency of agricultural production.

The Market study report provided that the worldwide AI in agriculture market size is

anticipated to get to US$550 million towards the end of 2025(Gupta). The use of AI in

agriculture assists the farmers in understanding the data insights which includes temperature,

rainfall, solar radiation and wind speed. Additionally, AI applications can detect infectious

disease and plague in crops by analysing photos captured by mobile phones (Smith &Neupane,

2018). Researchers have espoused a more unspecialised approach, advancing an AI application

that can examine photographs to spot crops and diseases with almost 100% accuracy. The AI

researchers at Makerere University have managed to examine and predict diseases spread over

time through a method which optimizes distinctively paper-based process by collecting sample

images captured with cell phones for examination and classification by an AI system.

Photographs of disease symptoms, including root damage and white fly accretion on leaves,

are put into a ML algorithm to provide swift diagnosis and assessment (Smith &Neupane).

According to Castro and New (2016), AI can identify symptoms of bacteria, or insect harm

in plant photographs, as well as examine plant nutrition data, weather forecasts, and other data

to determine whether a particular plant is at risk of getting infected and this is facilitated by a

system that utilizes networked cameras, sensors, and a machine-learning algorithm to monitor

crops and caution farmers as soon as a plant is sick. Therefore, boosting accuracy of learning

computing technologies for example image recognition has transformed agriculture.

Traditionally, agriculture has depended on the eyes and hands of experienced farmers to

pinpoint the right crops to pick but thanks to the emergence of harvesting robots equipped with

AI technologies which can now make such decision in real time (OECD). Hence AI is bringing

more benefits to humanity through its application in agriculture. Undoubtedly, AI systems have

the capacity to tackle the challenges that are experienced by farmers such as climate variation,

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plaque and weeds that lessen yields. Therefore, the development of AI technology in

agriculture has buttressed agro-based businesses to run smoothly

2.2 Social, Economic and Ethical implications

2.2.1 Impact of AI in Labour market
Firstly, it should be stated that technological advancement, particularly digitalisation,

has considerable implications for labour markets and therefore it is very important examine the

impact of AI on labour market develop policies that advance competent labour markets for the

benefit of employees, employers and societies at large. Scholars anticipate that AI and other

new technologies will not cease to benefit highly-skilled workers who can make use of

creativity, interpersonal skills and problem-solving, whereas low and medium-skilled

employees are likely to face downward impact from progressively efficient machines and AI

software (Petropoulos, n.d). Therefore there is a high possibility that this downward trend will

aggravate already high levels of income inequality worldwide. Levy and Murnane (2003)

points out that technology can supersede human labour in daily tasks, whether manual or

learning, however cannot supplant human labour in non-routine tasks. AI can negatively impact

employment in two major ways by expanding the demand for labour in companies or jobs that

arise because of technological development directly replacing workers from tasks they were

formerly doing. The life-changing impact of AI on every industry is undeniable, as is its impact

on the labour market and there is no doubt that AI will transform the way we live. The first

noticeable change will be rise in demands for persons who are exceptionally skilled in AI

technologies, both on application and technical level, but who also have professional attributes.

But AI will significantly impact the universal labour market replacing those activities that can

be automated. McClelland stated that, “ AI has cut positions, broken the bottleneck of human

efficiency, reduced standardized and repetitive work, changed the nature of work and enhanced

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work efficiency but at the same time, it has created new jobs.” McKinsey Global Institute

suggests that by 2030, AI could supplant as much as 30 percent of global human labour.

However, Brookings Institution suggests that even if AI replaces human labour as much as 38

percent, some Western countries will most likely to resort to totalitarian policies to deter civil

chaos, similar to what happened during the Great Depression. Brookings writes, “The United

States would look like Syria or Iraq, with armed bands of young men with few employment

prospects other than war, violence, or theft.” Calum McClelland therefore brings an important

discussion about the types of jobs that are being created and destroyed. According to Manjao

(2011), as of now, low and high skilled jobs are not at risk to automation. Farhad Manjao

further believes that the low-skilled jobs categories such as food service, janitorial work,

gardening, home health, and childcare will be replaced by AI, but there’s little motivation to

automate these roles at the moment, as there is majority of people who are disposed to do them

for low wages. Thus considering the negative effect of AI on the labour market, one might be

tempted to conclude that AI is not good for humanity.

2.2.2 Social Inequality

According to Hussein (2018), the use of AI in society will likely to bring social

inequality as the considerable effect of the AI technology is the broadening of wealth gap. The

growth of a gap between rich and poor will automatically result in social disruption which

endangers the growth of the economy (Wisskirchen et. al, 2017).According to the IBA Global

Employment Institute, wage differences will as a result become a problem, regardless of the

entrenched minimum wages in many countries, including US, Germany, France or the UK.

Majority of people will end up losing their jobs, whereas highly qualified, innovative and

determined professionals will expand their wealth (Wisskirchen et. al). AI technology will

reduce human labour in different companies and this means that the income will go to fewer

21
people. Therefore, AI powered companies will make huge amounts of money while fewer

people will benefit. However, some scholars have argued AI technologies are not going to be

cause of increased unemployment but still it can destroy medium jobs while increasing creating

wealth gap. Thus, that will increase the social disparity and intensify the gap between low and

higher end job earnings. Burhan Rashid Hussein suggests that society and their governments

should enact and implement policies that will make sure that there is equal distribution of

wealth among people to fight the increasing gap. It is suggested that these policies should

increase taxes to those companies which are benefitting the most and expose more people to

the technology. Burhan Rashid Hussein suggests that future and younger generation should be

ready and prepared for the impending digital world and every worker needs to enhance his or

her skills either by inventing and being creative of managing the automation itself. Although,

AI systems hold magnificent promise for social benefits such as advanced agriculture, better

medicine, and more accessible education; so far this promise comes with risks and challenges.

AI systems is said to have a paradigm of embedding and increasing social inequality

(Hagerty&Rubinov,n.d. .According to Hagerty and Rubinov, Latinx and African American

borrowers suffered discrimination from credit algorithms which include bias regarding race,

gender, sexual orientation in sentiment analysis systems, natural language processing

technologies, and datasets of pictures used to train image recognition software. Thus this

occurrence proves a pattern in which AI systems inappropriately affect chronicled

disadvantaged, alienated, and vulnerable groups. According to Bushra Ebadi(2018), in 2017,

the Canadian government stated that it would be investing $125 million in a Pan-Canadian

Artificial Intelligence Strategy, for the purpose of establishing its position as a world leader in

AI. The 2018 budget reiterated the government’s dedication to investing in AI and it frequently

made clear its intention on “advancing gender equality and women’s empowerment” as a “main

theme of its Group of Seven Presidency.” However, as it currently stands, the Pan-Canadian

22
AI Strategy does not clearly mention conventional gender considerations in the investment and

advancement of AI. It is suggested that, in order to genuinely advance gender equality and

women’s empowerment, gender deliberations and issues need to be conventional across all

disciplines and segment, including AI. Therefore social disparity is considered to be the main

disadvantage posed by the burgeoning of AI.

2.2.3 The Fallibility and Bias of AI

Currently, AI is mainly used for purposes that are either beneficial, or not actively harmful

to people. Organisations are now misusing big data to spread propaganda manipulate elections

and incite social chaos via targeted marketing. According to (" The 7 Most Pressing Ethical

Issues in Artificial Intelligence," 2019), AIs’ are not free to making mistakes and machine

learning takes time to become effective but if trained well, using quality data, then AIs can

perform well. However, AI can be deadly if we input incorrect date into AI systems or make

mistakes with internal programming.. To illustrate this point, Teka Microsoft’s AI chatbot,

Tay, which was introduced on Twitter in 2016, in less than one day, because of the information

it was getting and assimilating from other twitter users, the robot learned to vomit racist

disparaging and Nazi propaganda. Microsoft then decided to immediately shut the chatbot

down since permitting it to continue operating would have obviously spoiled the company’s

reputation ("The 7 Most Pressing Ethical Issues in Artificial Intelligence,"2019). Furthermore,

it is argued that if there is a possibility that AI systems can make errors then it is within the

sphere of possibility that an AI can become good for nothing, or create unwitting implications

from its actions in following seemingly harmless goals. Undoubtedly, AI systems are

susceptible to biases and flaws caused by its human creators. The bias of AI in facial and voice

recognition systems has negatively affected people. The data utilized to instruct the AI systems

can be biased for example, facial recognition algorithms created by Microsoft, IBM and Megvii

23
were biased when detecting the gender of people (Abigail Beall, 2018). It was found out that

these AI systems could accurately detect the gender of white men more than gender of black

men. Another example is that of Amazon’s cancellation of AI recruitment which proved that

AI lacks fairness where the algorithm favoured male candidates (Abigail Beall). It is further

argued that the bias emanated from Amazon’s system which was trained with data collected

over a 10-year period that was gathered from male candidates. According to Tadeo, Compas,

a risk-assessment tool developed used by the Wisconsin Department of Corrections to decide

whether to grant people parole ended up discriminating against African-American and Hispanic

men. It also came to light that, in the trial process, this system with bias predicted that the

accused black people constitute a big risk of relapsing into criminal behaviour while predicting

the opposite for white defendants. It can be argued that unlike humans, AI systems lack the

moral compass or principles. However, this argument can be weakened by the fact that even

the moral principles of humans sometimes do not entirely benefit humanity. Since the bias and

faulty of AI results from how it was instructed, it is therefore important that scientists who

work in AI research need to avoid the bias when determining what data to use so that AI will

not be biased towards gender, race, religion or ethnicity ("The 7 Most Pressing Ethical Issues

in Artificial Intelligence").

3 Socio-political impacts of AI
3.1 AI and military
The impact of AI on combat has become a passionately debated topic among military

strategists and professionals (Franke &Sartori, 2019). Military technology comprises kinds of

technology that are typically military at heart and not civilian in implementation, normally

because of lack of useful or legitimate civilian implementations, or are risky to use without

adequate military training ("Military Technology,"n.d). AI has a diversity of applications in

military which includes analysis of intelligence, enabling of autonomy by giving the intelligent

24
systems the freedom to act, logistics, training, strategic prevision, and weapons systems. Most

military experts are extremely interested in AI-powered independence. However AI the rapid

development of AI in military has potential significant implications for national security. AI

will certainly be used to provide assistance to decision-makers in military applications.

Additionally, AI is going to be used to examine the battleground and produce relevant

information to soldiers through advance warning displays and weapon control systems (Cooke,

2019). These systems will also be employed to spot and categorise threats, focus on targets,

and pinpoint the location of allied troops and secure distances around them(Cooke). In addition

to that, these systems obtain information from multiple sensors beyond the battleground to

create an image based on information. There is reason to believe that human soldiers’

responsibility to control the most military actions in future will not be entirely taken but AI

will give a readily comprehensible analysis and direction on the basis of big data for unassisted

humans to understand (Cooke). Heather M. Roff (2017) states that, “there are three antecedent

constraints on human security elated activities which includes the inability to know about

threats in advance, the inability to plan appropriate courses of action to meet these threats, and,

the lack of capacity to empower stakeholders to effectively respond”. Therefore it is necessary

to address these limitations in order to prevent thousands of lives from being lost. The use of

AI is therefore the possible way to allow immediate, practical and effective responses to a

diversity of issues related to human security. Nevertheless the application of AI in military is

likely to result in the violation of international law. Uralvagonzavod’s T-14 Armata tank and

the Northrop Grumman’s unmanned combat air vehicle, the X-47B, are examples of extremely

advanced weapons to prove this point. Professor Sharkey explained that, “ while these systems

are the pinnacle of advancements in AI, the technology nonetheless encounters difficulties in

distinguishing civilians and combatants, which presents a challenge for complying with

International Humanitarian Law, also known as ‘the laws of war”("The Risks and Benefits of

25
Artificial Intelligence and Robotics", 2017). However the fact still remains that AI is

universally anticipated to have a great influence on the future of combat. Cognisant of this fact,

the United States and China have significantly invested in the growth of AI-enabled weapons.

However, there is fear that this could result in significant implications for defence competence,

tactical strength, and geopolitics. The United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research

cautions that the swift development of AI has major implications in terms of autonomy in

weapon systems. Some intelligence machines have the capacity to carry out more difficult tasks

in extreme complex environments (Frank&Sartori). From a military perspective, there are five

potential benefits of AI-enabled independent systems such as the process of massive data, and

making of quick data based decisions, making military systems strong for opponent defences

to trace, AI is not hindered by human feelings in battle and that could help reduce civilian

casualties, AI-powered autonomy is significant to the growth of capacity that can result in

military breakthroughs and AI is likely to minimise the need for human soldiers in future,

thereby preventing them from harm . However, Franke and Sartori argue that AI enabled

weapons are more likely to present risks and challenges considering the fact AI systems are

programmed and learnt which simply means that it is difficult for a human to completely

understand the machine’s reasoning. This is very concerning for systems that have the ability

to take life-and-death decisions. It is also considerably difficult for humans to predict or find

mistakes made by AI systems including mistakes caused by antagonistic action such as

sabotage. Franke and Sartori urge societies that rely on AI wil to understand that the fact that

mistakes can emanate from biases developed by AI systems which are trained with biased data.

Nevertheless, adversaries can make use of these flaws in a way that is hard to find. Thus, AI-

powered weapons have vulnerable characteristics which are probably unknown to military

strategists and commanders (Frank&Sartori). According Frank and Sartori, political leaders

intelligibly fear that the growth of AI-powered deadly independent weapons could incite

26
competition of military weapons development and procurement. Therefore, there is a risk that

such AI-enabled weapons could cause unrestrained escalation when one nation begins to use

them and gain a major military advantage. Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) that intend

outlaw deadly independent weapons including Killer Robots, which sparked the discussions on

these systems within the context of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons (CCW)

at the United Nations mainly focus on the ethical risks and challenges of AI-powered weapons

systems. The relevant NGOs are extremely worried about the distinctive challenges brought by

systems that enable humans to shift the burden of life and death decisions to machines. AI

enables the development of weapons that entirely replace humans from making the decision to

kill. In addition to that, the rapid development and utilization of unmanned aerial vehicles

(UAVs) often known as drones has faced criticism as to whether there should be complete

prohibition for the use of UAVs which have the capacity to execute tasks on their own

(Cummings, 2017). Therefore, the discussion which is more concerning is whether AI

machines should be allowed to carry out major military operations, specifically when there is

likelihood that any human life could be at risk. The augmenting incapacity to differentiate

commercial drone and military UAVs is a significant factor to consider in the discussion about

AI-enabled weapons because there is evidence proving some transferring in AI expertise from

military to commercial operation. It can be argued that there are various reasons as to why there

is failure in leading these AI technologies to maturity, such as the cost and unpredicted

scientific issues, organizational and cultural obstacles. A good example is US which has

grappled to lead UAVs to an operational level, mainly because of organizational discord

(Spinetta and Cummings, 2012).

3.2 AI in government
There is no doubt that the applications of AI in public sector are wide-ranging and

increasing. The application of AI in government brings major benefits, such as effectiveness,

27
cost savings through reduction of the number of employees, organisation and minimisation of

chances to perpetrate corruption ("Artificial Intelligence in Government", n.d). AI has a variety

of usages in government which includes furthering public policy goals for example, emergency

services, healthcare and assisting the ordinary citizens to communicate with the government

through the use of virtual aids. As mentioned above, AI will save costs and bring possible

efficiencies for the government. Deloitte has predicted that AI is likely save US civil servants

between 96.7 million to 1.2 billion hours a year thereby ensuing potential savings of between

$3.3 billion to $41.1 billion a year (Eggers,et.al, 2017). AI systems provide significant tools of

social organization and control which can be used to maximum advantage in numerous pro-

social ways from protecting the integrity of election processes, to augmenting the effectiveness

of public transportation, to successfully responding to natural disasters. Social control is

exercised by what the governments in combination with what a population believes they can

do. Additionally, AI has advanced human security for example through the use of security

footage which produces useful evidence of committed crimes in society (Ashby, 2017). Some

governments have installed AI systems to foster social welfare programmes for example AI

could provide assistance in accomplishing perfect directory levels at health and social service

locations through the use of machine learning technologies that evaluate transaction data and

create progressively precise renewal predictions. Hence this would facilitate the predicting and

policy development. Nonetheless governments ordinarily both magnify and reduce the

sophistication of the capacity of their surveillance for the purpose of appearing mighty or weak,

depending on their intentions for example, the U.S. government magnified the success of its

surveillance programs in preventing terrorism (David, 2014).Similarly, the Chinese

government habitually exaggerates its ability to look more powerful, indicated by a popularly

circulated chronicle of the unfortunate show attendee who was captured for economic crimes

by a facial recognition system (Hagerty&Rubinov). However, AI systems are likely to be

28
misused or abused for undemocratic objectives, for example exhaustive surveillance of citizens

and intimidation of activists. Another critical issue of concern is the socio-political risks and

challenges of entrusting the responsibility of human decision-making to AI intelligent

machines (Robert Braun, 2019). The delegation of human-decision making responsibility to

AI machines raises a lot of questions linked to social, economic, political, technological, legal

and philosophical issues (Dignum, 2017). It is worrisome that beyond ethical considerations,

societies are yet to find the ways of dealing with developing AI technologies (Robert Braun).

3.3 Unprecedented challenge to democracy and threat to human rights

AI has been criticized for its risk of human rights violations. The rights at stake are non-

discrimination, right to privacy, security, and freedom of expression and association, the right

to work and access to public services (Kritikos, n.d). The EU’s fresh initiatives evidence the

inclination of its major organisational players to respond rapidly to the significant human rights

challenges and guide the development of a human-centred AI. Precisely, the European

Commission communication on AI for Europe made specific recommendation of the need to

invest in AI which is human-centric (Angus, 2018). They took a comprehensive approach to

AI, and reassert the support for research into human-AI cooperation. It is argued that AI-driven

surveillance violates the fundamental rights of people which include the right to privacy. AI

does not appear to create huge controversy among citizens in countries like China and

Singapore because surveillance seems to be a bearable exchange for stability and security but

in other regions there have been indications of dissatisfaction. In 2016, Venezuela introduced

a national ID system connected to healthcare and social programs which could track users

beyond a range of services but unfortunately after its introduction, activists hacked into the

national database and removed accounts of well known politicians in an act of political

confrontation (Angus). However, AI promotes democracy by empowering political

29
participation of citizens. Savaget et. al (2018) states, “ technologies based on AI can radically

change the existing political paradigm through empowering more diffused forms of political

participation beyond elections especially in the emergent worldwide context of unrestricted

disclosure of governmental data online”. AI systems could contribute immensely to democracy

by engaging marginalised citizens with public administration. It is undisputed to assert that

citizen involvement positively affects the quality of democracy (Michels, 2011) Furthermore,

the advancement of AI technologies rapidly increased the access to information and processing

of big data in a quick and efficient manner. Nonetheless, harmful consequences of AI are likely

to materialise, for instance, if governments misuse and abuse AI technologies for the purpose

of repression and standardization. It is also argued that AI systems tend sabotage the fairness

and quality of political discussion, and that AI systems throw back the values of their creators

and their intended purposes (Mittelstadt, 2016).AI has enabled the unparalleled and

dissemination of false information and personalised manipulation. Actually, there is available

evidence to prove that bots were misused in the 2016 US elections and programmed to

disseminate false messages to fabricate the mirage of public support (Kollanyi, 2016; Bessi

and Ferrara, 2016). It is further alleged that cyber troops installed AI technologies to delude

the public, manipulate voters during election campaigns by determining the public discussion

and twisting the political opinions (Bradshaw and Howard, 2017). AI technology is likely to

strengthen authoritarianism through giving governments’ unparalleled methods to observe,

repress and influence the citizens. Authoritarianism undermines the human rights of citizens

because such system of government is defined by extremely centralized too much power

sustained through political suppression and the marginalisation of dissidents. Mass surveillance

and the strengthening of authoritarianism have resulted in the loss of privacy hence infringing

the right to privacy. AI-powered technology will cause erosion of civil rights through the

intensification of bias, statistical defects and inaccuracies. This is likely sabotage the non

30
discrimination and equality principle, which is stipulated different constitutions of democratic

societies (Korner, 2019).Thus, this poses an unprecedented significant challenge to democracy.

AI has manufactured new forms of oppression which unreasonably affects the impotent and

vulnerable people in a negative if not harmful way. It is very important to understand the

concept of human rights and Kevin Korner helps to remind us that human rights are unalterable,

universal and obligatory, and that they are enshrined in international law. It is therefore

important that government and institutions should respect human rights. According to Kevin

Korner, “the growing use of AI in the criminal justice system risks interfering with rights to be

free from interferences with personal liberty”. The good example is in relapsing risk system

employed across criminal justice system of US to advice on detention decisions at virtually

every stage, from granting bail to conviction. The use of ths system has resulted in many

accused black people being wrongfully identified as high risk and granted extreme bail

conditions, confined in pre-trial custody, and sentenced to extended prison terms. Moreover,

AI has potential to limit the freedom of movement through its use of surveillance. There is

possibility that AI can give a comprehensive photograph of persons’ movements and can

forecast the future location of individuals. Thus AI can easily be misused by undemocratic

governments to restrict the movement of people thereby infringing the right to free movement

(Korner). In nations where freedom of religion is at stake, AI can also be abused by government

officials in observing and attacking members who belong to persecuted religious groups. In

addition to that AI-powered censorship could be misused to limit the freedom of association

through discarding social groups, pages, and information that facilitates gatherings and

association. Considering the significant role of social media in mobilising protest or

demonstration movements universally, the use of AI is likely hinder assembly worldwide if it’s

abused. The fabrication and dissemination of false information undermines the idea of free

and fair elections and poses a major threat to the right to political participation. In addition to

31
that, the use of AI systems such as surveillances, that enables governments to pinpoint and

suppress cultural groups could instil fear in people and stop them from participating in cultural

life. Finally, it is debated that AI-enabled robots which enable job automation threaten the right

to work. Thus considering AI’s unprecedented challenge to democracy and threat to human

rights, one might be forced to conclude that it brings more harm than good humanity.

4 Recommendations on how address the risks and challenges

associated with AI
The technological development in AI promises to be prevalent, but its application in society

has impacts and implications in health, agriculture, financial services, economics, security and

governance. Undoubtedly, AI in amalgamation with other emerging and converging

technologies will possibly reshape our society through better decision making and development

to the human condition. Nevertheless, if it’s devoid of enough risk assessment and mitigation,

AI is likely to become a threat to present vulnerabilities in security, economic systems, and

social structures. Therefore for risk mitigation purpose, policy recommendations propose how

to utilize the benefits and reduce the risks for society, particularly by including the participation

of humans into multiplex socio-technical systems to ensure that the development of automated

intelligence is safe and equitable. So the conscientious advancement of AI systems that

prudently considers the coexistence of humans and technology in terms of hybrid thinking

systems will help to ensure that humans remain ultimately in control, either individually or

collectively, as AI systems gain superhuman abilities("How to manage AI’s risks and

rewards,"2018). Furthermore, there are socio-political challenges associated with entrusting

the human decision-making responsibility to AI machines (Robert Braun (2019). The rise of

decisions to delegate human decisions to artificial decision-making has created a lot of

questions connected to the social, economic, political, technological, legal and philosophical

32
issues (Dignum, 2017). Hence AI scholars suggest that AI systems need to be developed in

accordance with the principles of accountability, responsibility and transparency which are

guiding principles of a human centred and intelligent system (Dignum, 2017). The

accountability principle is defined as the need to give explanation and justification of the

decisions and actions to users including the stakeholders with whom the AI systems interact.

The second principle which is responsibility is explained as the ability of artificial intelligence

decision-making systems (ADM) to respond for their decisions, to spot errors or unpredicted

outcomes. This principle advocates for the need to connect ADM to the responsible, fair use of

data and actions of stakeholders involved in the AI system’s decision. The third principle is

transparency which is defined as the need to explain and examine the mechanisms through

which AI systems make decisions and learn how to adapt to the environment. Moreover, some

stakeholder groups have actively become involved in the discussions on how to direct the AI

advancement and deployment to serve the interests of all society. The Institute for Electrical

and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is one of the stakeholders which launched the Global

Initiative on Ethics of Autonomous and Intelligent Systems which provides principles, ethics

and values for the safe and beneficial development of AI in future. This AI Initiative focuses

on bringing together experts and citizens worldwide to create a common understanding of

concepts such as AI explainability (OECD). The framework of rules for the operation of

machines and AI automated systems have been introduced for instance, the Civil Law Rules

on Robotics proposed by the European Parliament which advocates for social dialogue of

issues related to liability, safety, security and privacy in the coming AI era. It is also advisable

to create regulatory systems and structures to ascertain accountability and liability for AI

decision-making that is wrong, prejudiced, or discriminatory, and create mechanisms for

redress. The regulatory systems should be backed up by policies that stipulate transparency in

terms of decision-making, evaluative procedures to ascertain the capabilities of AI systems,

33
and authentication of AI systems that engage in tasks which require degree of skill or training

(OECD). It is still believed that AI could help to bridge the digital divide and build an inclusive

society (OECD). However, the burden is on the AI professionals to be ethical, transparent, and

conscious in how they apply AI technologies. AI professionals should be mindful of the real

risks and challenges associated with the execution on the promise of AI. There is absolutely no

doubt that AI has the capacity to facilitate the agenda towards the achievement of sustainable

development goals and therefore there is need to ensure that the AI development is fair and all-

inclusive. Some organisations and governments have now embraced the relevant ethical codes

relating to AI in order to address the risk where AI might fail to function in a human-centric

manner or operate in accordance with human values. Additionally, organisations and other

stakeholders should conduct risk assessment in order to identify, examine, prioritise and

minimise potential risks that might adversely affect AI system’s conduct and outcomes. The

application of AI in human resources presents opportunities and challenges so there must be

human-AI cooperation to guarantee that AI applications for hiring and evaluation remains

transparent and that unbiased.

Moreover, the abuse of AI has posed a major threat upon human rights and it is mandatory

for governments and private state actors to respect the human rights. Governments and private-

sector actors should take necessary steps to ensure they do not violate human rights or

contribute to human rights abuses. The formation of AI ethics policies by some private-sector

actors is commendable; however a human rights impact assessment ought to be amalgamated

into bigger ethics review processes. In addition to that, private-sector players should follow

transparency and explainability measures, as well as create procedures to guarantee

accountability and access to remedy. Certainly, the human rights due diligence, enlightened by

expert stakeholders, will help organisations in preventing and reducing human rights abuses

(Lindsey Andersen,n.d). Hence, there should be increased scrutiny of big techs to protect

34
democracy and it is very important for the governments to respect human rights and uphold the

doctrine of separation of powers in order to prevent the abuse of AI and violation of human

rights. In order to fulfil the obligations of the global digital economy, governments are obliged

to update regulations, competition rules and supervision. Citizens should also strive to be

become digitally literate so that they will gain understanding of the algorithms or designs

behind devices and underlying data economy mechanics (Kevin Korner). Finally, swift action

is needed address the human rights risks and to prevent the predictable harmful impacts of AI.

Lindsey Andersen, proposed four major policies to deal with the human rights risks posed by

AI. Firstly, it is suggested that comprehensive data protection legislation can help reduce

human rights risks posed by AI but additional measures will be required since it is specific to

data. Secondly, the use of AI by the government should be governed by high standards such as

open procurement standards, human rights impact assessments, and full transparency,

explainability and accountability procedures. Thirdly, given the private sector’s duty and

obligation to respect human rights, companies should therefore go beyond establishing internal

ethics policies and establish transparency, explainability, and accountability processes. Lastly,

there is need to conduct more research into the potential human rights risks of AI systems and

investment should be made in developing structures to respond to such risks.

5 Conclusion
In conclusion, AI technologies are swiftly developing with great potential benefits for

economies, societies, communities and individuals. AI technologies hold significant promises

of improving the productivity and creating new products and services for the society. The

potential of AI to bring transformation in employment sectors has resuscitated concerns

towards automation and the future of work. There is a growing debate about the fears of the

end of work and reassurances that there will be slight change in terms of overall employment,

35
but evidence indicates neither of these extremes is likely occur ("The impact of artificial

intelligence on work,"). Nevertheless, there is consensus that AI will cause disruptive effect on

work, resulting in some jobs being lost, others being created, and others changing. AI systems

have exhibited a pattern of aggravating inequality, particularly in the unequal societies and for

the most vulnerable people. The unwelcomed implications of AI are most likely to be felt by

historically alienated groups, but they are unlikely to be limited to any particular group. It is

therefore undisputed to assert that, while AI-enabled technologies hold enormous promise to

improve the lives of people worldwide, they also bring risks. Scholars have argued that AI

threatens human rights and undermines democracy. Considering the fact that transformative

benefits of AI are associated with risks, AI has become a growing policy priority for all

stakeholders. Some countries have introduced AI policies that consider AI as an engine of

development and welfare, seek to educate and enrol the future generation of researchers, and

consider the best ways to address AI challenges. National policies are required to foster reliable

AI systems and these policies will bring beneficial and equitable outcomes the society. The

establishment of an enabling policy environment for a reliable AI requires facilitating

investment in AI research and development and empowering people with the relevant skills to

succeed as jobs develop (OECD). Thus AI holds huge promises and its advancement indicates

it will continue to develop in a manner which is beneficial for the society (Ma, 2019). But, it

can only be as beneficial as the way its data is provided and managed. Nonetheless, the risks

and challenges that AI poses remains a concern so there is need to for the people to prepare for

the inevitable digital world where people will utilize AI technologies to simplify their tasks

and not to feel threatened by it. Governments and other stakeholders should cooperate with the

experts, researchers to direct AI technologies towards helping humanity (Hussein, 2018).

Having considered the positive and negative impacts of AI, one might be tempted to conclude

36
that AI is not bad for humanity but the flawed application, misuse and abuse of AI is bad for

society and humanity.

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