Page 35 - JPGS Magazine

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE:

WHAT IF?

Last year, I watched a movie called Ex Machina, and it got me thinking: What if we
achieved artificial intelligence? The answer seemed obvious then. It would revolutionize

the way things are done. Military, airfare, production of goods, and intellectual reasoning
would all rapidly metamorphose. We could achieve the seemingly impossible: flying cars,

traversing deeper into space. AI would be appropriated into eliminating human error and
sorting out technicalities. However, on further reflection, I thought otherwise. Does AI

really seem like such a blessing, once achieved?
First, let us establish what artificial intelligence is. Artificial intelligence is the capability
or capacity of machines or computers to think for themselves. They extract information

from their surroundings, and make calculations void of error. Basically, machines imitate
the intellectual properties of humans. However, the ethical question is: Can we trust

something that can think for itself, even if we are its creators? All traditional sci-fi
literature has portrayed anything that can think for itself as something unable to be

trusted.
The way Ex Machina portrayed AI was quite ingenious. It seemed like a pioneering

breakthrough at first, setting the foundation for the future. In spite of that, it mutated
into something much darker, complex and vicious, as evident with Ava in the movie.
Even considering the philosophical aspects of AI, we are edging ever closer to achieving a

machine that can think similarly to a human, even if not with the same potency as the
human mind. In the middle of 2014, a super-computer successfully convinced a panel of

judges that it was a thirteen year-old boy, and consequently passing the Turing Test (a
test in which a computer has to convince a human that it is also another human, through a
simple conversation). However, many reports in June 2014 had concluded that although

the computer (named Eugene), had seemingly passed the Turing Test, it had not quite
emulated the intellectual qualities of man.

In conclusion, it is inevitable that if we do achieve AI, we certainly will be able to utilise it
to our benefit, thus dramatically altering the face of the technological industry. However,

being the creators of such a ground-breaking invention, we will ultimately be responsible
for introducing something that can potentially become the largest hazard to us.

By Adam Usman