What Happens When Androids Get Too Good?

A human-like Android eye (Photo courtesy Pixabay)

By Jonah I. and Daniel S., 6th Grade, Krieger Schechter Day School of Chizuk Amuno Congregation

Artificial intelligence is a complex computer program that makes its own human-like decisions based on the environment around it. AI can perceive human emotions and make logical decisions; it also has robotic abilities, like computing formulas and storing documents, photos and more. But what would happen if AI got too good and started making unprogrammed decisions? It is reasonable to expect AI to eventually outperform humans and claim human jobs, as AI does not need to sleep, eat or be paid.

According to Anand Thaker, an adviser for high-tech companies, “Thirty percent of companies worldwide will be using AI in at least one of their sales processes by 2020.”  According to Thaker’s article “9 Surprising Statistics in Marketing Artificial Intelligence Trends,” multinational professional services network called PWC found that 43 percent of people born after 1999 would consider paying top dollar for a hybrid human-bot customer service channel for stores and companies. Many companies are already starting to think about their efficiency in an AI-filled world.

There are already some shadows of androids in this world. Siri, Alexa, and Cortana are primitive versions of the futuristic androids of tomorrow. As many know, Siri, Alexa, and Cortana are personal assistants who can solve math problems, set alarms, look up the weather, and complete other useful tasks. However, they are not in the shape of a human, therefore demoting them from the Android community.

Miriam Glaser, a middle school science teacher at Krieger Schechter Day School, expects life in the short term to remain as it is today. “In 10 years, I think we are going to see a lot of what we have today,” she said. “Our computers might be even faster and we might be able to access everything everywhere, no matter where we are; there will be no roaming charges and there is going to be network everywhere.”

Changes in 10 years may not make life much different from now, but in a century, life will be influenced greatly by robots, according to Glaser.

“In 100 years, I think computers will be doing most of our work for us,” she said. “A lot of the work that people do, like banking, is going to be taken over by computers.” Tasks that do not involve physical labor or person-to-person contact will likely be replaced by androids and robots.

Glaser also thinks that AI will eventually make unprogrammed decisions because of “the way that AI has been programmed. They would be programmed to evolve. I think that is the future of AI. The humans can program AI to evolve and to constantly be changing and humans are not always going to be monitoring them. But I think AI can see people doing an action and then they do an action.”

AI will evolve like humans, behave like humans and generally be like humans. It’s just that they will be robots. For example, when an Android sees a human waving to another human, then that Android will mimic the wave to other people. In addition, if an Android hears a person curse when angry, the Android might curse every time it acts mad, too.

Unlike Glaser, Sam B., a 6th grade student at KSDS, disagreed, stating that AI will be programmed to act in a precise way. “I do not think that AI will start to make unprogrammed decisions because AI has to follow a certain code. If it learns the code and develops the code over time, and unless you want it to develop those types of habits, it will not.”

Additionally, Sam B. said, “I think that new companies will arise because there are all kinds of people out there who will think of ideas that other companies had not thought of.”

In conclusion, AI is a scary and powerful idea and may not be as far off in the future as most people might think.

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