ABSTRACT

For this assignment, find

solutions to three critical
questions regarding artficial
intelligence.
Mailson Ribeiro Embalo
E-skills

COOPERATION
Artevelde University of Applied Sciences
 E-skills: Cooperation 1

TABLE OF CONTENT
Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 2

Questions ................................................................................................................................................ 4
Question 1: What are the drawback of Artificial Intelligence?................................................... 4
Question 2: Can artificial intelligence become self aware? ....................................................... 5
Question 3: Is AI ethical? .................................................................................................................. 7

Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................. 8

Bibliography ........................................................................................................................................... 9

Mailson Embalo
 E-skills: Cooperation 2

Introduction
In this paper, I will be illustrating 3 questions in regards to Artificial Intelligence
(AI) and its influence in our current society. Moreover, I elaborate further on
each of the questions in the discussion by doing research online. Last but not
least, I did a conclusion on the reflationary concept of this subject and how I
learned a lot while writing this paper.

The term artificial intelligence stirs emotions. For one thing, there are our
fascinations with intelligence, which seemingly imparts to us humans a special
place among life forms. (Ertel)
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a revolutionary and innovative system that is
changing the overall aspect of technology. Coined the 4rth new technological
revolution, Artificial Intelligence is becoming more and more prevalent today
in age. It is being applied to a multitude of different sectors from Banking to
Finance to industries and is proving to be a force of great advancements.
Which raises the question, what is Artificial intelligence exactly and should we
be concerned by its rapid expansion

AI is the term used for systems that utilize the human level of intellect to perform
tasks. The oxford dictionary defines it as "the theory and development of
computer systems able to perform tasks normally requiring human intelligence,
such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision-making, and
translation between languages”. However, the exact magnitude of what is
considered AI based on that definition is still an ongoing debate as experts
discuss what truly classifies as an AI.

Aside from that, there is a distinct classification as to AI, currently, we can

classify them in two classifications. Weak AI which is also known as narrow AI is
one that is programmed for a singular task. A good example of this type of AI
is smartphones. Siri, the apple generated phone assistant is an example of a
narrow AI as it is programmed for a specific task. While the other type of AI
identified, strong AI is more complex.

Strong AI is one that uses a human level of cognitive ability when presented
with an unfamiliar request to find a solution. This form of AI is also known as
artificial general intelligence. Moreover, In this level of AI classification, one can
find some of the most recognizable areas where AI is making an impact. The
self-driving cars that many have heard about are an example of strong AI.
However, a lot more is expected from strong AI, including the possibility for it to
become self-aware.

Mailson Embalo
 E-skills: Cooperation 3

Yet, it is important to discuss some aspects of AI and its possibilities. Reasonably,

one can speculate that AI has many advantages and it does have many
possible elements that make it a valuable innovation. Nonetheless, what could
be its drawbacks? It is important to identify the actual and potential drawbacks
that AI might hold, and if any, what are they? Moreover, at this point, another
essential question cannot be avoided: if AI continues its current trends, will it be
capable of gaining self-awareness? Which lead to one last point that should
be inevitably discussed: what are the ethicals matters that Artificial Intelligence
raise?
Those questions do not have unilateral responses and therefore require
arguments and debating to have the best comprehensive approaches to it.

Mailson Embalo
 E-skills: Cooperation 4

Questions
Question 1: What are the drawback of Artificial
Intelligence?
Even though artificial intelligence is mostly regarded as a positive aspect of our
daily lives, there are still a lot of disadvantages. The following flags a few
drawbacks that can be expected from the exceptional technological
advancement that Artificial Intelligence represents.

o Unemployment
Some economic previsions have raised concerns about the AI’s impact on jobs
implying monotonous tasks, meaning that those jobs are bond to disappear
upon arrival of cost-effective AI.
Unemployment will surely rise in most countries because of the advancements
of AI. Most Humans tend to be resistant to change, and in our case, have a
negative view when it comes to advancing AI because they believe that this
will result in average workers losing their jobs. (Medium, 2018)
However, it is argued that the job market is also evolving and adapting. Those
jobs will likely be replaced by other types of jobs, more creative.
Unemployment might be first order consequences of AI, however, the second-
order consequences might be beneficial to unemployment. We can,
nonetheless, conclude that AI will accelerate the transformation in
employment models in every many markets such as businesses, education and
even in terms of national and international security.

o Limitation of creativity
Robots are programmed to do certain defined tasks. Even though it is true that
they are more efficient at doing what they are programmed for than humans
are, the fact remains that robots will never innovate or produce creativity in the
manner in which they operate. Humans can make decisions or judgemental
calls for which we do not need programming or permission, especially when it
implies ethics and empathy. Those Human thought mechanisms are not yet
reproduced by AI, especially for processes that call for emotions.
(Technodistrict, 2018)

o Addiction
Even though we cannot deny the added value of artificial intelligence, it can
easily get out of hand. People tend to depend a lot on artificial intelligence
making it questionable if we should even continue progressing in this field, or at
least implement strong mechanisms of control. Today’s generation is addicted
to the use of smartphones and software which, arguably, results in all these

Mailson Embalo
 E-skills: Cooperation 5

technological advancements making us forget sometimes to use our own

creative and developed mind to figure things out and think out of the box,
making users even more and more dependable on technological gadgets.
(Insidebigdata, 2018)

Question 2: Can artificial intelligence become self-aware?

Before answering this question, it is important to know what being self-aware is
according to legal institutions and professional dictionaries. According to the
Cambridge dictionary, being self-aware means having good knowledge and
judgment about yourself and your actions. With this definition on the back of
our minds, finding a possible answer to this question becomes more possible.
(Cambridge Dictionary, n.d.)

(AlexLMX, n.d.)

However, giving the fact that today's fast incremental advances in the artificial
intelligence, such as the increasing abilities of driverless cars: a machine that is
self-aware and what surrounds it while amassing a huge amount of data in
realtime could be a real Breakthru especially because for instance it could be
sent on exploratory missions to places that wouldn't be habitable to mankind
or into a warzone. Besides, imagine coming home to a homecooked meal,
house cleaned and grass well-cut.

Mailson Embalo
 E-skills: Cooperation 6

All these technological advances do not, however, come without their fair
share of threats to humanity. One of which is a simple fact of machines
replacing humans at literally all jobs. That would save humanity from workaday
drudgery and so on while also put many societal foundations in jeopardy. A life
of no having to work and just enjoy could turn out to be a dystopia.

A self-conscious machine could also rise the troubling legal and ethical
problems (discussed below). Furthermore, that would eventually raise the
questions such as should machines be treated as Human or person under the
law and therefore be liable if its actions hurt someone or if something goes
wrong?

I also research youtube and found this video on by Oscar Alsing. In his video,
he explains reasons such as why he believes that artificial intelligence will
become self-aware in the nearby future. Moreover, he read a research paper
named, where there was a quote explaining the meaning of self-awareness.
The paper mentions that human beings assume that awareness is equivalent
to human intelligence, but awareness is just a set of computations, for instance
just like our brain, which is structured in a specific way that creates a sense of
awareness inside of us. Furthermore, Alsing goes on to explain that artificial
intelligence works in the same way if not better provided that they are immune
to emotions which makes us human being human. Artificial intelligence is just a
sense of computations. According to him, artificial intelligence can become
self-aware because just as our brain is just a set of computations. (Alsing, 2017)
According to Steven Schkolne. He also believes that artificial intelligence is self-
aware. However, his ideas differ from Alsin. Self-awareness is being split into
external self-awareness and internal self-awareness. External awareness is the
awareness that is being expressed to the world. An example of an artificial
intelligence software that is excellent in this is Siri from Apple. Siri provides you
with answer questions conversationally just like a human being would. That
ability makes Siri self-aware. Internal self-awareness is about the realization of
your personality, including your emotions and beliefs. However, the opposite is
true according to Schkolne. The idea of Von Neumann explains this. The first
computers had two piles of information, the program cluster and the data pile.
Von Neumann’s idea was to emerge to two together. This enabled the
possibility for programs to change themselves and manage other programs.
This is also considered as internal self-awareness. (Develop Good Habits, n.d.)
(Schkolne, 2018)

Mailson Embalo
 E-skills: Cooperation 7

To conclude, after all this information I gathered, is that AI is self-aware to a

certain extent. As long as it is limited in a way that it does not transcend their
needs for existence and starts to impact human beings lives.. Moreover, we
should not confuse self-awareness with emotions as the latter is what makes us
human being different and special at the same time.

Question 3: Is AI ethical?
Drawing up a conclusion to such a question is very difficult because many
elements need to be factored in. Here are some controversies about the ethics
behind Artificial Intelligence:

One of the key factors attributed to AI and the question of ethics is if

employment will be affected by the rise of AI. Many believe that with the
introduction to Artificial Intelligence into a multitude of sectors the workforce
will have to compete with machines, with the risk that jobs regularly done by
humans will be completely taken over by AI. Labour focused on jobs such as
welding and soldering are areas that AI can completely automate. This has
been raising the question as to what will be of the unemployed that once held
these positions. One counter-argument mentioned is that those working in
labour-intensive sectors will be free to pursue other areas of work. Therefore,
the ethical concerns behind whether it is ethical to deprive many of their main
sources of income and therefore making them incapable of sustaining their
lives and basic needs are partly irrelevant on the long term run as technology
as such has always been replacing the Humans physical work.

Another ethical issue is what the distribution of wealth will look like once
affected by the profits generated by AI. Moreover, will everyone be capable
of accessing the technology in a fairly well-distributed manner? This is a
question that has yet to be addressed and is even more relevant now that we
see the wealth gap continuing to increase. So, for the future of the AI,
governments, multi-lateral organisations and businesses will have to address this
ethical matter.

One subject that has been under discussion is the ethics of AI in internet
programs. This is revolving around the transparency, morals, privacy and other
key concerns that increasing the reliability of technologies shared across
countries and sectors raise. Big-name companies such as Google and
Microsoft have been working on making their systems as transparent and
secured as possible, especially in terms of privacy.

Mailson Embalo
 E-skills: Cooperation 8

Even more interesting is the question of how Artificial Intelligence will be treated
and what rights will it have. On top of figuring out how exactly the AI will affect
us, the raising considerations if and when AI becomes self-aware will implies to
have rights given to it which will be tremendously changing our ways. There will
be gaps in legislation and ethical principles that will need to be anticipated
rather than reflected upon after wide dispersion and use.

Overall it has become clear that AI is in a topic highly debated, yet through
the right regulations and laws, all the concerns can be tackled to make it
ethically right. However, it might take a while as the exact parameters of where
AI is and what it can be implemented in is still being developed and
expanding. It is important to note that it does not mean that the concept of AI
is something in and of itself ethically and morally wrong.

Conclusion
There are a lot of questions concerning AI and the advantages and
disadvantages it will bring like the fact that people are going to lose their jobs
and also how safe everything is going to be are the most debated questions
on AI.

We are repeatedly hearing about self-ridden cars, but are we ready to trust our
safety to a machine?
The fact that a lot of jobs are going to disappear with the advancement of AI
is a fact. But we believe that a lot of jobs will be created which do not exist yet.
Even though we are aware of the fact that most of the jobs we have now did
not exist some years ago. Moreover, there is still no proven experiment that has
confirmed that human beings can construct the computations of the human
brain. Can robots be structured in such a way that they can create a sense of
awareness? If so, will we be creating them that way or under a different model,
and what will be the consequences?

As of today, one thing is for sure, creativity is not replicable within robots as it is
a process that calls for emotions. Therefore, it will be up to human beings to
become as creative as they can.

Mailson Embalo
 E-skills: Cooperation 9

Bibliography
(2018, 01 17). Opgehaald van Medium: https://medium.com/innovation-
machine/artificial-intelligence-3c6d80072416
(2018, 10 22). Opgehaald van Technodistrict:
https://technodistrict.com/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-artificial-
intelligence/
(2018, 06 16). Opgehaald van Insidebigdata:
https://insidebigdata.com/2018/06/16/using-artificial-intelligence-treat-
addiction/
Alsing, O. (2017, December 8). Can AI Become Self-Aware And REPLACE
Humans? Opgehaald van Youtube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R978UgfT8xQ
Cambridge Dictionary. (n.d.). Self-awareness. Opgehaald van Cambridge
Dictionary: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/self-
awareness
Develop Good Habits. (n.d.). What is self-awareness. Opgehaald van Develop
Good Habits: https://www.developgoodhabits.com/what-is-self-
awareness/
Mills, T. (2018, August 28). How Far Are We From Truly Human-Like AI?
Opgehaald van Forbes:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbestechcouncil/2018/08/28/how-far-
are-we-from-truly-human-like-ai/#414e47031ac9
Schkolne, S. (2018, April 4). Machines Demonstrate Self-awareness. Opgehaald
van Becoming Human: https://becominghuman.ai/machines-
demonstrate-self-awareness-8bd08ceb1694
What is self-awareness? (n.d.). Opgehaald van Deeve:
https://www.developgoodhabits.com/what-is-self-awareness/

Mailson Embalo