People have been fascinated with giving inanimate object sentience. From the ancient thinkers who created the holy statues of Egypt and Greece (statues that ancient people believed were imbued with intelligence and emotions by their creators), to the robots or nanobots that Hollywood movies portray in a make believe robot-human war, artificial intelligence (AI) has been something humanity has worked to accomplish for centuries.
Last year, we got introduced to our new virtual assistant friends: Siri, Alexa, and Google. But that’s not the only thing that happened within the artificial intelligence sphere that the public got introduced to. We also saw the mainstream emergence of facial recognition programs in our smartphones, AI in our cars, and even a totally autonomous, self piloting drone. Now, these may not be the AI robots that some people fear will be taking over our jobs, but it is a good leap in artificial intelligence.
With the strides artificial intelligence has been making, what would this year have in store for us?
We can expect artificial intelligence to make an even larger impact in international politics. A prime example is what is happening between the US and China, two AI giants. The US government imposed high tariffs on and export restrictions on goods and services needed to create artificial intelligence. Huawei announced plans to develop their own artificial intelligence processing chips to reduce China’s dependence on the US for and research and development of AI.
This could set a precedence of the restriction of freedoms or to our right to privacy. When countries are starting to get very territorial of artificial intelligence, the rights of the people could be in danger.
We can also expect to see artificial intelligence being used in various businesses. There might be a prevalence of the use of programs with predictive technology to predict when systems or machines will fail.
There will also be greater strides in using artificial intelligence for cybersecurity. There might be some push back from people who believe that incorporating artificial intelligence in cybersecurity might pose more of a risk than actually help. Worry over keeping personal data private and the invasion of privacy is causing fear in this sphere. There are people, however, who believe that integrating artificial intelligence in cybersecurity will help in predicting security breaches and protecting data.
In the medical field, Cleveland Clinic physicians predict that artificial intelligence in healthcare will be an important innovation in 2019. Artificial intelligence has the potential to assist physicians in decision making, triage, and treatment of patients. They believe that it will reduce physician burnout.
And for the layman with a smartphone or a home system, virtual assistants are predicted to be even more integral part of our lives. We might see an even more optimized Alexa or Siri or Google, with better predictive abilities. Ordering a pizza or anything off of Amazon will be even easier.
With all of these advancements, the worry that some privacy laws may be broken is always present. It is always a good idea to learn your rights and the laws that protect them. And should you feel that your rights have been violated, get in touch with a lawyer who knows their way around the crimes within the AI sphere.
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