Living in the Age of A.I.

A.I. is an incredible thing. With the progression and advancements of technology over time, A.I. has become what was once a fantasy to a fully functional, extremely complex reality that has done so much in its short lifespan on this planet so far. In Frontline’s PBS documentary, In The Age of A.I., specialists in the field of A.I. speak on both the positive and negative impacts of the rise of A.I. with technology over the years. This was a very informative documentary, and I’m glad I was able to sit down and watch it.

Overall, the swift rise of A.I. and its increase in complexity isn’t necessarily a bad thing. While it may be scary on the surface, it is intended to be used for positive reasons, and we’ve seen plenty of times where A.I. has been implemented that has benefited the masses. The thing we should be a bit frightened about is the use of A.I. in regards to privacy. While A.I. has become much more mainstream over the years through the use of applications like Siri, Amazon Alexa and Google Home, people are getting too comfortable without recognizing that A.I. can be a major security threat for personal information. The surveillance aspect of A.I. is only growing, and we’ve already seen how places like China have used it in their quest for a complete surveillance state. There’s no limit to how far A.I. can go, and while the U.S. hasn’t seen that drastic of a turnaround in surveillance, seeing the capabilities of China is a good indicator that our own country has the technology to do the same, if they choose. Using A.I. with malicious intent could mean the end of privacy as we know it.