One of the world’s most current topics relates to “artificial intelligences”, and they represent possible future problems for humanity, and that’s what I’d like to talk about here today.
After this brief introduction to the subject, it is important to make it clear that I am not here to talk about any benefit, because, yes, there are, mainly related to the acceleration of technology development in the world, which generates benefits in several areas, such as in medicine, which can be greatly benefited from the help of AI work. However, this is not what I am going to talk about, it is about something that may well be so bad that it overcomes the benefits of integrating AIs into the world.
With the introduction of AIs, extremely manual work tends to disappear, with the integration of this "intelligence" into machines, even more so because it costs much less to maintain an arsenal of machinery for performing manual work, such as in a factory that works using the Fordist model of production, where several people are on a treadmill waiting to perform their repetitive manual function of, for example, putting a steering wheel into a car. However, it must be observed that this change only benefits the owners of these factories, and, in fact, does not observe the bias of workers who do not have the knowledge and experience to practice a profession that is not manual, and this is what is seen in the underdeveloped and emerging countries, an unskilled majority in relation to the exercise of professions that demand extensive knowledge and years of study.
Another relevant topic, in a more philosophical area, relates to the concept of "sense of life". An extremely common answer, and not worse than any other asked by renowned philosophers and sociologists, for the question "What is the meaning of life?" is this: "The one who gives the meaning of life is the very human being who lives it". At this point, with the integration of AIs in everyday life, the work becomes less and less necessary, starting with the extremely manual functions and then, escalating to positions that demand more and more precision of thought. In the end, work becomes merely a periodic maintenance of AIs, until they can do it on their own, and then there will be – ultimately – a society without work. A hypothetical society where everyone can enjoy their time, enjoying the fruits of an invention that is like a perpetual movement, a work that generates more energy than it expends and feeds on it, becoming infinite.
However, not everything is good, in fact, none of this is positive. What is the point of living? Everything is automatic, your only job is to enjoy life. You will live more and more and more, and all social problems will be solved gradually with the power of millions of geniuses working all the time without stopping. But what is the point of living that way? To achieve nothing, monotoneity is infinite, impossible to change, everything is empty, there is nowhere to go up, you are rising alone and without demanding effort. Is it really worth living in this world? I don't think so.
These are just a few problems generated by the integration of AI in the daily life in an intense way, one in the first years and another after a while. Of course, there are other very relevant counterpoints that I prefer not to enter into the merit here. They include, by example, the lack of need for artists, musicians and creative employees, but this is not yet current, the current state of AIs doesn't allow this, considering that they are still quite limited in the question of "going away" from their database, since what they do is nothing more than studying a database and starting to merge things to create "almost new" things, but I strongly believe that, in the future, it will be a past problem. Despite this, just search up on the internet that you will find covers of artists who have already died made by AI and very well-made songs that act as a very well done "mashup".