Artificial intelligence is a constellation of many different technologies working together to enable machines to sense, comprehend, act and learn with human-like levels of intelligence. AI is everywhere in our lives, from reading our emails to receiving driving directions to obtaining music or movie suggestions. We benefit from AI technology every day without even realising it.

AI is very prominent in devices we use every day, such as our mobile phones. Most of what we experience in our day to day lives is narrow AI, which performs a single task or a set of closely related tasks. Built-in smart assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant are the more obvious examples of AI that most of us are aware of and use. AI is present within various social media apps. Whether it is your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, or other platforms, what you see and do on these applications is, to a large extent, influenced by machine learning. AI controls the feeds that you get to see while browsing through these platforms or the notifications you receive. It takes into consideration your tastes & preferences, your history, and imprint on social media to select the information to transmit feeds that you find more relevant and are more inclined to see.
How many times have you wondered, looking at an online ad, “I was just thinking about buying this product“? This is AI at work, keeping track of what you do online. The products you browse on various shopping sites or search engines are tracked, and advertisements related to these products are fed to you. AI also uses information relating to demographics like your age, gender or profession, to determine which products that you are most likely to click on adverts for. This is becoming more relevant, with many businesses using digital marketing tools to target their preferred customers. This great advantage means companies will not need to excessively spend on marketing to the wrong crowd, and customers searching for these products can find them easily.

Other than AI being integrated into the simple luxuries in our lives, general AI has been used to improve existing technologies needed for necessities and contribute to the progression of our society. An example of this is AI robot technology being utilised for medical surgical procedures, to minimalize the risk of human error, which in this case could potentially lead to fatalities. Another example of this is self-driving cars. It may seem like these are vehicles from the future, but self-driving cars have become possible primarily thanks to computer vision and deep learning. CV uses high-resolution cameras and lidars that detect what happens in the car's immediate surroundings. As a result, car systems can react to possible obstacles and avoid accidents. They are still in the process of being tested, however once perfected, the vehicles would enable people with disabilities (blind, immobile) to have access to driving their own cars.

Despite all these remarkable benefits that come with artificial intelligence, there are of course some downsides. For example, AI is used in machines at fast food places. AI technology can greet customers, take orders, transfer orders to point of sale systems and do other functions. In a pilot program last year, Checkers & Rally's (a drive-through restaurant) found that the AI voice assistant had 98% accuracy in taking drive-thru orders and did not need restaurant employees to intervene. Although these machines are a step forward to a more advanced world, it means that there is less need for actual humans and reduces employment. Why would companies keep employees when they can use artificial intelligence?
AI is now being used in supermarkets so customers can check out themselves and won’t need to wait in a long queue for a cashier. Amazon Fresh stores are almost entirely operated through AI technology, without the need for traditional staff that other grocery supermarkets need to employ. While the upfront cost of building and training an AI machine is high, the overall cost of operation is much lower than paying a human to do the same job according to the APA. In both examples, the AI might be expensive to program and create but it does not need a salary or first aid facilities. Furthermore, the machines won’t need salaries, call in sick or need to be interviewed to see if they are worthy of the job. This saves employers time and money, that can be spent elsewhere.
On the contrary, this is an extensive issue for a lot of people. With AI machines replacing the need for humans to work, jobs will become scarce and the competition for work will increase significantly. Undoubtably, this advancement will leave many people jobless and unable to provide for themselves or their families. Not only is this an upsetting problem, but the people will also have to rely on government handouts to cover their cost of living. This clearly puts a strain on the government, and many take away from other areas of spending such as education or healthcare. If this continues, taxpayers may be taxed more for their earnings which reduces their disposable income.

Additionally, it is costly to have these AI services. AI requires a lot more computing power than normal. You are sifting through billions of records, running through hundreds of billions of combinations for data sets. Skills like data science, natural language processing, computer vision, and deep learning are in high demand, with a limited supply of talent. This means that even a small AI team can cost a business upwards of $320,000 per year in technology development costs alone.
What’s more, no matter how advanced AI becomes, it will never be able to feel and connect the way humans do. Humans are all about learning and understanding from different incidents and past experiences. However, because AI cannot think, it is lagging in this area. The ability to think, combined with emotions such as self-awareness, passion and aspiration, allows humans to master complex cognitive operations. These human characteristics are important in the jobs of people like social workers, lawyers, counsellors, artists and authors.

Overall, it is clear that artificial intelligence has a prodigious impact on our world today. AI can be used to fundamentally rethink how we solve the world's problems as it has the potential to greatly improve things like healthcare, education and poverty. AI machines can do some very beneficial things already today that humans will simply never be able to, which is why artificial intelligence is an enormous help to society.