Capital is smart. According to PitchBook statistics, in 2010, the global artificial intelligence and machine learning field received less than $500 million in venture capital investment, while in 2017 the amount of investment in this field has exceeded $10.8 billion. 2017 is also known as the world's artificial intelligence "year". At the same time, the broad application scenarios and possible risks of artificial intelligence make artificial intelligence a question of choice in front of human beings.
Artificial intelligence has a broad application prospect
Although artificial intelligence may bring various risks, but artificial intelligence technology has a broad application prospect, can greatly promote the social and economic development. In recent years, the accelerated integration of AI with electronic terminals and vertical industries has resulted in a number of AI products such as smart homes, smart cars, wearable devices, smart robots, etc. Moreover, AI is comprehensively reshaping the industries of home appliances, robotics, healthcare, education, finance, etc., which will bring about a lot of economic benefits.
Therefore, China's government and enterprises attach great importance to the development of artificial intelligence. in July 2017, the State Council issued the Notice of the New Generation of Artificial Intelligence Development Plan, which put forward a three-step strategy, by 2030 China's artificial intelligence core industry scale to reach 1 trillion yuan, driven by the scale of the related industry to reach 10 trillion yuan. At the same time, Tencent, Ali and Baidu have set up artificial intelligence research centers, hoping to occupy the commanding heights of technology research and development. It can be seen that China has a huge traditional industrial base. How to make the technology of AI better transform more traditional industries is a problem that practitioners in various fields need to think about.
Take the medical industry as an example, at present, the annual growth rate of China's medical imaging data is about 30%, while the annual growth rate of the number of radiologists is only 4.1%, the growth in the number of radiologists is far less than the growth of imaging data, the ratio of pathologists to the population is 1:70,000, and the ratio of this ratio in the United States is 1:2,000. experience to make judgment, with a high rate of misdiagnosis and missed diagnosis. AI's data processing and image recognition technologies can be applied to medical diagnostics to improve doctors' diagnostic accuracy and work efficiency, and greatly alleviate the pressure of insufficient supply of talent in China's medical industry.
In addition, according to the latest data from the National Bureau of Statistics, as of the end of 2017, China's population aged 60 years and older had 240 million people, accounting for 17.3% of the total population, of which 160 million people aged 65 years and older, accounting for 11.4% of the total population. The aging of our society is deepening, the labor force dividend will disappear, and artificial intelligence can be used as a new production factor to make up for the lack of labor force ratio.
Artificial Intelligence may cause the widening of the social divide
With the rapid iteration of the basic theories of artificial intelligence, constantly challenging the limits of human beings, many scholars have begun to worry about the threat of artificial intelligence to human beings. Currently, AI is still in the stage of weak AI, and the threat it poses to humans lies mainly in the exacerbation of the human social divide.
Employment threat
The widespread use of artificial intelligence in various industries will most likely cause the disappearance of a large number of existing jobs, especially some simple and repetitive jobs, and the corresponding employees will be unemployed. Even if there will be new types of jobs created, this part of the staff may also be unable to perform and lose their jobs. In addition to the direct competition between AI and humans, the competition within the human race will also increase, and in the future, many jobs will require familiarity with the operation of AI, and those who are more adept at mastering the technology of artificial skills will have an easier time getting employed, while the rest of the people will probably be completely unemployed. Yuval Hurali, author of A Brief History of the Future, believes that if artificial intelligence develops to a certain extent, the vast majority of people will become a useless group. Especially in the era of strong AI, when robots have the mental abilities of humans, there will be a greater variety of jobs that can be replaced.
Distribution of social wealth
Inequality in employment will lead to inequality in the right to benefit from social wealth, with more countries, companies, or individuals that master AI technology being able to obtain a greater distribution of social wealth, and the other part of the human race being at an extreme disadvantage in social competition. This may make the entire human society divide increasing, between countries, enterprises and enterprises, people and people will also face a rapid division, the result is the stronger the stronger, the weaker the weaker, the extreme imbalance between rich and poor, the root of the human society to live in harmony will no longer exist.
The threat of artificial intelligence to humans
In the advanced stage, strong artificial intelligence will have a complete psychological ability similar to that of human beings, and once the robot learns to think independently, it is likely that it will not continue to yield to human control, and will even launch an attack on human beings, which will ultimately lead to a catastrophe for the human race. Stephen Hawking has warned of the devastating threat to human survival posed by the development of emerging technologies. In addition, how to distinguish between humans and robots. How to determine the social status of the robot will bring potential social problems, once these problems can not be well resolved, even if there is no war, local conflicts will arise.
Comprehensively regulating and guiding the development of AI
To cope with the social problems brought about by AI, scientific planning and effective protection can be carried out in the following four aspects.
Provide employment early warning
The problem of unemployment caused by AI can be solved at the policy level. On the one hand, the government should establish a professional early warning mechanism as soon as possible, and the possible development of AI should be taken into account in the cultivation of talents, and the enrollment plan of various professions should be dynamically adjusted in time, so as to avoid the excessive head-on competition between human beings and AI. On the other hand, the training of learning ability should be enhanced to improve the flexibility of employment, such as the case of workers being replaced and laid off, the government needs to provide them with relevant training to help their employment.
Enhancing social security
The purpose of human development of AI is to serve human beings and reduce the time of human labor. Therefore, for the same labor time, humans should get more products and services because of AI. Artificial intelligence improves social productivity and the increased social wealth should be distributed more evenly among the public. To achieve this, the government needs to reform the existing welfare system and adjust the tax policies of various industries, while providing more social security for the socially disadvantaged. The implementation of this policy can improve poverty and extreme inequality, increase consumption and business vitality, and reduce social instability due to AI development.
Taxing robots
In order to balance the government's fiscal expenditure on providing skills training and social security, a tax on robots could be considered. The legal basis for taxing robots is that although robots cannot be considered human beings from an ethical point of view, from an economic point of view, robots are almost indistinguishable from human beings, and robots can work like human beings as a factor of production in enterprise production. As the cost of machine capital decreases, machine capital will replace human labor in production, which is the main channel through which automation or artificial intelligence affects employment and wages. By taxing robots, the adoption process of automation can be reduced, giving labor time to adapt to other occupations. A portion of this revenue could also be used to subsidize workers as a source of funding for workforce training.
Building an ethical code of conduct for robots
In the future, when AI reaches a certain stage of development, and continues to approach human production and life, there will be more ethical and moral issues. For example, whether robots should comply with human laws and regulations, whether robots should enjoy the rights of humans, and how to live in harmony with artificial intelligence are all matters that the international community and governments should address. Therefore relevant guidelines regulating the development of artificial intelligence is a very urgent matter. China is at the forefront of the world in this regard, and on May 7, 2018 the review meeting of the White Paper on Standardization of Robot Ethics in China was held. This white paper is a milestone because it presents for the first time a solution to the problem of robot ethics - the China Optimized*** Raw Design Solution. This clear framework lays the foundation for further improving the ethical standardization of robot ethics. As long as the development of AI takes place under certain constraints, the risks are manageable.
Like any other development of science and technology, AI has two sides, which can bring great wealth to mankind, but also may bring unpredictable disasters, like a mirror, in fact, are the mapping of human beings themselves. For unemployment and the increase in the wealth gap, artificial intelligence are only playing a reinforcing role, the solution to these social problems is still in the hands of human beings. As for the moral and ethical problems of robots and possible attacks on human beings, it is also something that human beings can now try to solve and prevent. Humans in front of the AI crisis is not powerless, but promising, the correct use of artificial intelligence is the direction of mankind should be firm.