Blog #10 - Living in the Age of AI (Frontline)

Living in a world where technology is the center of our society has presented its challenges. The way that our modern society functions has changed drastically in the last several decades due to the rise of modern technology. The creation of artificial intelligence (AI) has made life easier on the surface, but has created more problems than solutions. It has created problems for jobs, job wages, and user data privacy.

The usage of AI has increased productivity in many job occupations. Using robots and artificial intelligence makes the job faster, more efficient, and with less error. This sounds like a good concept, and one that would overall improve our world. However, AI has cost millions of people their jobs, and decreased the opportunities for new jobs to be created. More AI means less work and less pay for the workers who are left, and that puts millions of workers in difficult situations where they're struggling to get by to pay for their family. Certainly, there will always be job positions that can't be replaced with AI, but that doesn't offer any assistance to those positions that can, will be, and have already been replaced. 

Artificial intelligence also poses a huge threat to personal privacy. Tech companies and sites such as Google and Facebook are keeping tabs on us at all times. They know where we go, what we search, what we listen to, who we're friends with, and just about everything that they shouldn't know. Data storage and algorithms were originally a plan and tactic for Google to bring in more income. A predictive search recommendation based on search history was a monumental update to the software. For these algorithms to be useful and to fully work, this means that Google, Facebook, and other companies must be listening to us 24/7 to ensure that the algorithms are as accurate as possible.