Going over some of my previous papers I have written in College, I found this gem that I felt needed to be shared with the world. It is quite fitting that the class this was written for was called Cognitive Consequences of technology.
Artificial Intelligence is one of the fastest growing fields of scientific research. It has enabled automation of human tasks/decision-making, given insights into the working of our own brains, and made existing systems more efficient. When speaking of automation, many assume it means replacing humans with AI, while in fact it has been seen on many occasions that solely an AI does not always make the right decisions or do the task properly. While human jobs won’t be taken away by AI but rather they will collaborate in the workplaces of tomorrow. It is an exciting age to live in as never before have digital tools been so responsive to us, nor we to our tools which allows for more creativity and less time spent in learning to use the tools themselves (Wilson and Daugherty, 2018). But the constant use of external systems may lead to us becoming dependent on them. Similar concerns have been raised by many intellectuals in the past and present. The improvement in the quality of life that automation has brought is undeniable.
From self-driving cars to housekeeping robots, life is being made simpler and better by automating cheaper cognitive tasks due to the advances in the field of AI. Also, for much more cognitively complex tasks such as medical diagnosis or financial analysis, AI-aided systems help
people get more accurate results in lesser time than a non-AI system would have afforded. Instead of worrying that AI will take their jobs, people should be getting excited that they will soon be able to do their jobs through intelligent systems or in collaboration with intelligent agents. The collaboration between human and AI should help reduce each other’s errors, ushering in a new era of work. Augmenting human intelligence, especially creativity and decision-making with the help of automated systems presents a completely new way of living life itself. Similar to how computers made some jobs like communication through mail almost effortless. All benefits aside, there can be some potential problems to this partnership. One of the biggest examples is self-driving cars, where the trust between pedestrians and cars is in jeopardy due to drivers not being mandatory for a car to operate.
The topic of self-driving cars is a hot one in today’s world. While not very prevalent in all parts of the world, it is starting to integrate into real traffic in some parts here in the United States. On the road they are quite good at following laws and being aware of the directions, but one of the biggest roadblocks in its widespread acceptance is its compatibility with pedestrians. As discussed in class, people were shocked to see driverless cars and sometimes were confused as to how to proceed (Scott, 2018, _week 5 notes_). At pedestrian crossings, mostly at stop signs, people make eye contact with the driver to trust them and then cross the street. Although hard to implement, designers are trying to work a way around it. The issue of trust in automated systems has another form as well, one that involves bias in the systems themselves. Algorithmic bias exists in many automated systems today stemming from biases (conscious or unconscious) of the algorithm’s author (Scott, 2018, _week 2 notes_). This may result in these systems not working appropriately and create more hindrances rather than making the job easier. Another talked about
con of the collaboration of humans and automated systems could be their negative effects on our cognition. In one of his articles, Nicholas Carr speaks about how using internet based services are reducing our attention spans, and the over use of search engines like Google may even be making us “dumber” by rewiring our brains to be dependent on them (Carr 2008). Lack of research makes it more of a wild hypothesis but the cognitive effects of our reliance on computers and other automated systems are definitely existent, only the extent of the effects are hard to gauge.
In the world of tomorrow, human and artificial intelligence will come together to hopefully augment the life of every human being. With “jobs” largely being automated and the creative process of human brains augmented by systems which work with it to physically manifest ideas of the mind. With so many positives it is easy to get carried away thinking it is some Holy Grail, but it is not. Many problems limit this technology including but not limited to self-driving cars causing confusion amongst pedestrians and drivers of today, voice assistants not comprehending everyone, and biased systems denying access to certain sections of society. Moreover, the extent of the effects of combining our minds with that of artificially intelligent agents may or may not be as awesome as it sounds, but we all just have to wait and see.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ **Works Cited: ** Scott, T. J. (2018). _COGS10: Cognitive Consequences of Technology, week 2 notes_[PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from https://tritoned.ucsd.edu/bbcswebdav/pid-1326762-dt-content-rid-17513174_1/courses/COGS10 _S218_A00/COGS10_SU18_L8.pdf
Scott, T. J. (2018). _COGS10: Cognitive Consequences of Technology, week 5 notes_ [PowerPoint slides]. Retrieved from https://tritoned.ucsd.edu/bbcswebdav/pid-1338931-dt-content-rid-17564981_1/courses/COGS10 _S218_A00/COGS10_SU18_L18.pdf
Wilson, H. J. and Daugherty P. R. (July, 2018). _Collaborative Intelligence: Humans and AI Are Joining Forces._ Retrieved from https://hbr.org/2018/07/collaborative-intelligence-humans-and-ai-are-joining-forces
Carr, N. (July, 2008). _Is Google Making Us Stupid?_ Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/07/is-google-making-us-stupid/306868/
