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Feliz Josiah

Dwayne Williams

HSB4U

March 8, 2023

AI Chatbots

Is AI the end of humanity as we know it? Ai has become increasingly relevant within recent years

which further drives the question: what is AI exactly? While AI may not deliver the dystopian end to

humanity as we know it, it has begun to supplant itself in society and establish usefulness. One example

of this is in the increasing use and popularity of online AI chatbots. According to IBM Watson assistant,

their article on "How to build a chatbot" characterizes an AI chatbot as an online entity that uses natural

language processing, or NLP. This is an algorithm designed to help the bot understand human language.

Chat bots use machine learning to improve their understanding of English, and communicate better over

time. In basic terms, online chatbots will receive a message from the user, use the algorithms to interpret

the message, and simply generate a response in the most human-like fashion. Despite ethical concerns, AI

chatbots are the future, as the pose new ways to perform various tasks in the workplace and in the

medical/healthcare field.

First, It should be stated that AI technology impacts society in various aspects of change. The first

being customer service in the workplace. For example, this technology can be used as a personal

assistant, as characterized by HubSpot, a free chatbot building software. The source says, “Easily create

messenger bots that help you qualify leads, book meetings, provide answers to common customer

support questions, and more.” (HubSpot). Here it is evident that chatbots can be used to carry out

various tasks in the workplace thus making life easier. Another example can be seen in elderly care, as

highlighted in an article by The Guardian,

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"Kellye Franklin recalls the devastation when her now 81-year-old father, a loyal air force

veteran, tried to make his own breakfast one morning. Seven boxes of open cereal on the living room

floor with milk poured directly into every one of them. He would later be diagnosed with moderate to

severe dementia. Yet Franklin, 39, who is her dad’s only child and his primary caregiver, does not worry

about that repeating now. In late 2019, she had motion sensors that are connected to an artificial

intelligence (AI) system installed in the two-floor townhome she and her dad share in Inglewood, in Los

Angeles County." (Corbyn)

Here we see AI technology being used in everyday life to help the elderly. This is just one

example of how application of this technology could be used in the real world.

Though it’s proven useful, researchers have stressed that AI technology also poses possible

ethical concerns. Part of these concerns are centered around the AI's language model generation. In a

paper published by Cornell University, the concern over harmful data output is characterized, "...large

language models can generate outputs that are untruthful, toxic, or simply not helpful to the user." (Long

Ouyang et al). This problematic tendency outlines potential bias and lack of authenticity on the part of the

chatbot. Aswell, chatbots are trained on a specific set of data. This means that if the training data is biased

the AI system may perpetuate said biases. This can lead to issues of discrimination against certain groups.

In an article published by Time, the public concern for AI's lack of recognition of specifically black

people was highlighted as follows:

“My research uncovered large gender and racial bias in AI systems sold by tech giants like IBM,

Microsoft, and Amazon. Given the task of guessing the gender of a face.... The companies I evaluated had

error rates of no more than 1% for lighter-skinned men. For darker-skinned women, the errors soared to

35%. AI systems from leading companies have failed to correctly classify the faces of Oprah Winfrey,

Michelle Obama, and Serena Williams." (Buolamwini).

This is further illustrated by an article published by The New York times,

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“Thanks to underlying bias in the data used to train them, some of these systems are not as good,

for instance, at recognizing people of color. In 2015, an early image-detection system developed by

Google labeled two Black people as “gorillas,” most likely because the system had been fed many more

photos of gorillas than of people with dark skin." (Hill).

Within these articles, the concern over breeding inherently “racist bots” is expressed. This

displays part of the ethical concerns over bias and possible discrimination, within the implementation for

the future of AI technology.

Despite ethical concerns, AI is still predicted to integrate itself further in society throughout the

next decade. One example of this can be seen through the mental health field. According to the World

Health Organization, AI is becoming a tool in the planning of mental health services, “AI is seen as a tool

in the planning of mental health services, as well as in identifying and monitoring mental health problems

in individuals and populations.” (World Health Organization). This new form of emotional interaction

will impact society and how individuals obtain mental health help, ultimately revolutionizing the

approach to this issue. Another example prediction can be seen through customer service positions, once

again. IBM predicts that AI will improve response time and reduce the overall need for human interaction

in customer service positions, “Meet customers’ needs by solving their most pressing issues quickly,

accurately, and consistently across any digital or voice channel.” (IBM). This would reduce the need for

human interaction and improve response time, most likely impacting society through this predicted

reduction in human interaction. Thus, AI is predicted to integrate itself into society in significant ways.

Despite setbacks and ethical concerns, AI chatbot technology continues to essentially be the

future as it introduces new ways to perform various tasks in the medical field and the workplace. AI

impacts society by providing alternative and more efficient pathways in the workplace and everyday life.

However, there is still concerning ethical error which must be kept in mind when further developing this

technology. AI is in fact the future, luckily it won’t be the abrupt end to humanity as we know it, but its

relevance has become undeniable.

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Works Cited

“AI for Customer Service.” Ibm.com, https://www.ibm.com/ai-customer-service. Accessed 9

Mar. 2023.

“Artificial Intelligence in Mental Health Research: New WHO Study on Applications and

Challenges.” Who.int, https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/06-02-2023-artificial-

intelligence-in-mental-health-research--new-who-study-on-applications-and-challenges.

Accessed 9 Mar. 2023.

Buolamwini, Joy. “Artificial Intelligence Has a Problem with Gender and Racial Bias. Here’s

How to Solve It.” Time, Feb. 2019, https://time.com/5520558/artificial-intelligence-

racial-gender-bias/.

Corbyn, Zoë. “The Future of Elder Care Is Here – and It’s Artificial Intelligence.” The Guardian,

The Guardian, 3 June 2021,

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jun/03/elder-care-artificial-intelligence-

software.

Hill, Kashmir, and Jeremy White. “Designed to Deceive: Do These People Look Real to

You?” The New York Times, The New York Times, 21 Nov. 2020,

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/21/science/artificial-intelligence-fake-

people-faces.html.

HubSpot. “Automate Conversations with a Free Chatbot Builder.” Hubspot.com,

https://www.hubspot.com/products/crm/chatbot-builder. Accessed 9 Mar. 2023.

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“IBM Watson Assistant - AI Chatbot.” Ibm.com, https://www.ibm.com/products/watson-

assistant/artificial-intelligence. Accessed 9 Mar. 2023.

Ouyang, Long, et al. “Training Language Models to Follow Instructions with Human

Feedback.” ArXiv [Cs.CL], 2022, doi:10.48550/ARXIV.2203.02155.

Thomas, Liji, and Sophia Coveney. “The Pros and Cons of Healthcare Chatbots.” News-

medical.net, 4 May 2022, https://www.news-medical.net/health/The-Pros-and-Cons-

of-Healthcare-Chatbots.aspx.