Blog #11 Age of AI

 Throughout time we have viewed the technology future with robots, flying cars, and an almost utopian society. When the film Back to the Future came out in 1985 they brought ideas of flying cars, hoverboards, and video calls. It still seems far-fetched since we all don't have flying cars, but we don't realize we are living a realistic version of the movie. In the film In the Age of AI, we get to see the technologies we never thought would happen come to life. There are things as simple as robots playing board games or as crazy as predicting the future with medical imaging. We tend to ignore the fact of how fast we are moving in the world of technology. 

The game of Go is an ancient board game created in Korea going back 4,000 years ago.  This isn't just a game for the Korean culture, but it's a way for people to learn strategy. The game has thousands of moves and some that people haven't even thought of yet. In 2016 Google used the technology of AI to create an online robot to play the game against one of the best players of Go in the world. To do this google recorded thousands of online games of Go. Once the AI named AlphaGo was playing it was able to go through all of that data picking the best move. The AI even created its own move that people had never thought of before. In total AlphaGo won 4 games and lost 1. This is crazy to think about. Technology was able to pick up on past patterns and create its own all by itself. It may seem small but this is a huge step for the future of AI. 

AI is hard for me to wrap my head around. I think I am nervous about my privacy and scared of the movie predictions that claim AI will take over the world. I know that seems crazy, but if they are already starting to create moves to a game no one has thought about before, just think about what they will be able to do in the future. I'm also scared of what's going to happen with my privacy. Facial recognition can now be used to track my digital footprint and pick up where I have been just by the use of my facial features. This can be an easier gateway to identify fraud. I am also worried about the decrease in jobs since the discovery of AI.  We are already seeing this at restaurants and even over the phone. In my hometown, we have a restaurant that uses all technology. You order on a tablet and the server is a little robot. If we are already starting their what's going to happen in a few years? How many jobs will we lose? At the moment I stay optimistic about AI and technology. If it gets into the wrong hands it can be used as a weapon, not a tool.