As mentioned within the third article in the New York Times series on A.I., artificial intelligence experts, such as Elon Musk, urged for the development of AI to be put on hold until "shared safety protocols" are instated. This raised a key concern society has been having in regards to AI and its development; will these systems take over jobs and crucially how intrusive are these technologies in regards to our privacy.
In this article, Should we be afraid of AI, published by Forbes, the author lays out the reasons why society is scared of AI and if these reasons are well-founded or not. Firstly, the article outlines that AI's transformative nature creates great fascination but also distress, as this transformative power can be positive and negative. However, the article also notes that the general anxiety in regards to AI come from the fear of mass unemployment, concerns about super-intelligence and the power of AI falling into the hands of the wrong people. I read a great analogy within another article which stated that the race to develop AI is similar to the space race during the Cold War, however just with AI.
In my opinion, I do not believe that people should be concerned about artificial intelligence growing too powerful and taking over man-kind (anytime soon). However, a worry I do see as legitimate is the concern of mass-unemployment, as AI will likely take over multiple 'arbitrary' jobs. On the contrary, manual labor such as plumbers will still remain, it is rather the lower half of the middle class/tier jobs which will be affected, such as assistants. Already nowadays companies have started trials with virtual assistants. Thus, the days for these kind of professions are number, however the days of humanity are not, well at least not in regards to AI.
