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Jamie Dalan Cox

Professor Parry

ENGL 2010

27 March 2019

AI and Robotic Benefits

The concern for robots/AI taking over the world or destroying humans has been a

popularized vision of Hollywood movie makers and sci-fi junkies in the last 20 years. But many

people do have a concern over if this is possible and how far in the future we can see a realistic

issue arise. And if you have been living under a rock you wouldn’t have noticed the exponential

rise of technology in the last 20 years and the huge developments developers and programmers

have made in making AI smarter. AI or Artificial Intelligence can be defined as giving a

computer the imitation of having human intelligence (“Artificial Intelligence”). We went from

having little toys when we were kids respond to us in little sentences when we interacted with

them to AI being able to beat world class chess players and learning to solve complicated math

problems all by themselves. And this is only the scratch of the surface to what AI will be able to

accomplish. It can learn and solve problems by itself given certain parameters. For example,

Google’s DeepMind AI taught itself to walk, run and do parkour all by itself. According to a

paper written by The Verge “DeepMind’s AI is teaching itself parkour, and the results are

adorable”, this is the beginning of teaching robots how to walk on uneven environments or just

climbing stairs in a home. (Vincent) It's truly fascinating to see how quickly AI is developing

and where it will be at 10-20 years from now and how it will benefit so many lives. I want

people to know that AI is not something to be scared of, rather embrace. I argue that AI pros far
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outweigh the cons to making a better society for our future, make our world safer for everyone

and how its not destructive for human progress.

AI will better for our society in meaningful ways rather than what skeptics say. One of

the main concerns for people is that AI and robots will replace humans in the workforce.

Although there will be jobs replaced by these machines, the jobs it will create will be massive

industry and the pay along with those jobs will be enormous and provide better lives for common

people. And larger technology companies like Google say they will provide classes and teach

people to fill these new jobs arising for people that can’t afford to pay a college tuition. In Tas

Bindi article “Google announces $1b commitment to tech education” Google has said they will

provide $1 billion dollars in grants to students for voluntary work to get an education (Bindi).

This will give people who want to better their life a jump start to get into a growing industry. The

CEO of Google Sundar Pichai said "We understand there are uncertainty and even concern about

the pace of technological change. But we know that technology will be an engine of America's

growth for years to come," (Bindi). This should give Americans ease of mind knowing that the

tech giants like Google know the concerns of citizens. Google hopes in doing this that it will

bring more money to their company because they will be able to hire these people to innovate for

them. On the topic of jobs, we need to look at how the economy could be affected. Because

when people are being replaced by robots are economy takes a hit. But there are many solutions

to have a steady and healthy economy. We can have a tax on robots and AI machines and the

money that is collected can go back in everyone's pocket. Meaning that everybody can have a

median pay each month to deal with robots taking over some parts of the workforce.

The benefits of AI and robots will also be able to help people in need or children with learning

disabilities. Children with physical disabilities can interact with robots and switches to exercise
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and have playful activities they wouldn’t have with other children (Adams 214). Adams

explains to us that “The use of AI could help children with motor and cognitive impairments in

performing the most difficult tasks when operating the robot.” She is suggesting that if we pair

children with AI it can actually be able to help them with their impairments and help them have a

balance between play and motor skills. And the AI along with the robots will be able to teach

children ethics and how to do deal with real human interaction (Adams 216). You will be able to

have this technology specifically designed to work with children for hours and give them

constant attention to these certain issues.

Many individuals are concerned with the security of their homes and personal

belongings. One of the ways AI can help keep us safe is the rise of smart homes and the

developing technology of keeping us safe. In Paul Sullivan's article “Can Artificial Intelligence

Keep Your Home Secure?” he suggests that home security is to be a $47.5 billion dollar industry

by 2020 (Sullivan). When you are in your house, you like to feel safe. AI can detect and notify

you when someone is around or knocking at your door. From Sullivan's article, he says “To

protect a property, these systems use technology like geofencing, facial recognition, and A.I.-

enabled cameras to help identify intruders. If someone breaks that boundary, the cameras will

alert a command center.” (Sullivan). These systems provide a picture and description of who is

outside. This will greatly decrease house robberies and it can one day completely get rid of crime

in the home. This technology can also be used for public streets, malls, parks, and businesses. In

real time AI can detect crime and alert police within seconds. This will help bring crime down

immensely because of the reaction of the AI and get rid of human error. A regular person when

alerting the police after a crime has been committed can be around 3-5 minutes after the crime
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took place. Giving the perpetrator time to flee the scene and get away. It will make people who

want to commit crimes think twice.

With being on the topic of safety and security we can look at the direction of autonomous

transportation. It's not hard to see the future of cars and buses taking full control over our roads.

Large car companies are investing millions of dollars in developing AI that can drive on our

roads safely. We get drowsy and there is a growing distraction that is arising in the car with

technology and kids. The question is, will Autonomous Vehicles be a better drive than humans?

Alissa Walker suggest in her article “Are self-driving cars safe for our cities?” That the sensors

and cameras in the car will be able to detect things that humans can’t. Driverless cars are

equipped with LIDAR, which means light-detection and ranging. It sends millions of lasers to

draw a 3D map of its surroundings and detect everything around the car (Walker). This tech will

make it so you will never have to pay attention to the road, your car does it for you. You simply

get in your car, select where you want to go and the AI will do the rest. This tech will also

decrease traffic immensely. The reason traffic gets so bad is because of congestion caused by

humans. This tech will work with other cars around it and go correct speeds and move with the

other cars to make your ride and time easier and faster. And regulation for these vehicles has

already been released by the U.S. government in 2016. The USDOT released a 116-page

document of the benefits and safety of these vehicles (Walker). With this technology being

regulated it can help citizens with concerns if this tech will become out of hand. There are certain

restrictions and test autonomous vehicles have to meet in order to be on the road.

AI will help teach children and help millions of teachers in the classroom. AI being

implemented in schools is growing each year. Teachers grading essays can have AI look at a

paper and tell you if it is been plagiarized or show any grammar mistakes. It helps save teacher
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hundred of hours each year. And in a Teachthought article “10 Roles For Artificial Intelligence

In Education” it suggests that AI can be developed to automatically grade essays and homework

to give the teacher more time in the classroom teaching rather than focus their time on grading

(“10 Roles”). This tech is being developed right now and we can see it ready for teachers very

soon in the next decade. AI teaching can also help developing countries that don’t have enough

money to hire teachers. We can already see websites like canvas being implemented in online

classrooms for teaching and grading. AI tutoring is yet another way to implement this tech in the

classroom. It will save teachers time and save schools money on offering a tutor after school. It

can teach children and students off-campus then any tutor could because it will always be there.

Although replacing a teacher with AI is still far away. It will help classrooms across the world

and will be better for our children developing and becoming smarter.

AI problems that skeptics bring up, is that it will dumb up humans. If we build these

complex systems to solve all of our problems, we will no longer need to solve our problems or

learn about anything because we will have robots and AI. But this is the furthest from the truth.

According to Edward A. Lee in his paper “Is Software the Result of Top-Down Intelligent

Design or Evolution” he states that “Humans today are strongly dependent on software systems,

just as software systems are dependent on humans” (Lee 35). He is inferring that without humans

AI have no purpose, they rely on us to give them instructions. There is a symbiosis between us.

AI will not dumb us up rather it will provide IA (Intelligence Amplification) (Lee 36). In an

article by Amal Nair about Elon Musk he quotes him saying, “that the initial step to upgrading

human intelligence is by planting a chip inside someone’s head.” This chip would act as an

interface to our brain and be able to connect it things like the internet, receiving information. It's

hard to know how far this technology is to being used. But Musk believes this will elevate
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human intelligence greatly. And this coincides Lee’s view on how we will achieve a symbiosis

between us and AI. This technology will make better and smarter humans, it will be a step closer

to a utopian view of our society where all people will have access to education and have an

intelligent mindset.

In sci-fi movies, we can see that robots will take over humans and try and destroy us.

When people think of movies or scenarios of a robotic take over we think that these robots have

a free thinking mind. Although AI is giving a machine intelligence, it's not giving them feelings

or all the hormones in our brain that make humans unique and free thinking. AI learning is all

done in algorithms and special instruction we code into them. Dubhashi and Lappin state that

“AI technology in its current state is also far from a mature state where credible risk assessment

is possible and meaningful responses can be formulated.” (45). They are stating that AI right

now and in the future is nothing to worry about because what is being developed isn’t a risk. We

would need technology far better than we have now to draw any exponential risk from it. And

when we get to a time where AI could become a risk we can evaluate what is at hand then.

Another way people say AI can be harmful towards humans is with robotic warfare. In

the future, we will replace robots with human soldiers to fight our battles. Its inevitably going to

happen at some point down the line. What would be the point of having human lives die when

we can replace them with robots. For example, look what's happening in Iraq and Syria with

terror groups like ISIS. The U.S. has used countless drones to keep ISIS away from people and

stop their progress in taking over the area where they would kill innocent people. Think about all

the lives that from U.S. soldiers that never had to see any combat. They can go see their families

and live another day. The issue comes around when we let robots have their own intelligence.

Will they be able to tell the difference between civilians or actual enemies? Well, the answer is
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clear, autonomous weapons will never make the decisions to kill or not to kill. All of these

decisions will be made by humans behind the console. Skeptics will bring up that drones we

have now killed thousands of innocent people. But in reality, it was the people behind the drone

that gave it the instructions to use its weapons. Although autonomous warfare is inevitably going

to happen, it will be monitored and controlled by humans.

As we look into the future for humankind we need to embrace that AI and robots are the

future for our species exploration. The imperfections of humans are that we have a finite life and

are delicate beings. When we are born, our eternal clock starts to dwindle and we grow old. In

Daniel Britts article “Robots Are Key to Future Space Exploration”, he states “The fragility of

humans, our aversion for risking human life, and the all-too-human need for consumables (food,

water and oxygen) require vast amounts of money to pay for the extra engineering and multiple

redundant systems we demand to reduce risk to astronauts, as well as for the vastly larger

support crews needed to babysit every aspect of daily life during a manned space mission.” With

AI and robots, there is no limit to their life, they live on forever. And we don’t need to ‘take

care’ of a robot. All they need is energy and direction. There is also no reason for sending the

robot back to earth. So this eliminates the issue of cost and worries about getting a vessel back to

earth. Our information that is collected by these robots can be sent back to earth in seconds. And

according to Brett, there is no choice between sending a human or a robot. Robotic missions are

the only real way to explore space (Britt). There is saying that has a lot of meaning to it, “Space

is the final frontier”. And we need robots and AI to deal with the vastness and danger of being in

space. The only real way to gain knowledge about our solar system is to send our robots with

their own decision making and gain knowledge for us.

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I hope at the end of this paper, you as the reader can come to your own decision that the

future AI is not something you should be afraid of. It makes a better society for our future, makes

our world safer for everyone and it's not destructive for human progress. We’re on an

exponential path for technology and the next 20 years in the industry will be amazing to see. AI

will help our society become the best it ever has. We are living in the greatest age of all

humankind. It will create jobs and lead the workforce industry. It will help the classroom by

teaching our children and helping teachers focus more on being in the classroom. It will make

society safer by being able to watch our houses and take us to our destinations by automation. It

can stop crime from happening on our streets and making public safety better than it has ever

been. We can also see that instead of robots and AI making our society dumber it will make us

more intelligent in the end, because of symbiosis between us and our AI. There should be no

reason to be scared of AI. We can see that instead of it being destructive, it will bring us

together, make society better and safer. AI will be the future of our species. Everyone's life will

come to an end at some point. And even humanity existence will come to an end. I beg the

question of what impact will humans leave on the universe when our time is up? The next

evolution of us will be in our technology in robots and AI. The only way we can leave our

imprint in the universe is to create a being that can deliver our knowledge and presence.

Works Cited

“10 Roles For Artificial Intelligence In Education.” TeachThought, 16 Sept. 2018,

www.teachthought.com/the-future-of-learning/10-roles-for-artificial-intelligence-in-

education/.
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“Artificial Intelligence.” Merriam-Webster, Merriam-Webster, www.merriam-

webster.com/dictionary/artificial%20intelligence.

Bindi, Tas. “Google Announces $1b Commitment to Tech Education.” ZDNet, ZDNet, 15 Oct.

2017, www.zdnet.com/article/google-announces-1b-commitment-to-tech-education/.

Britt, Daniel. “Are Robots or Astronauts the Future of Space Exploration?” Pegasus Magazine,

www.ucf.edu/pegasus/opinion/.

Dubhashi, Devdatt, and Shalom Lappin. “AI Dangers: Imagined and Real.” Communications of

the ACM, vol. 60, no. 2, Feb. 2017, pp. 43–45. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1145/2953876.

Lee, Edward A. “Is Software the Result of Top-Down Intelligent Design or Evolution?

Considering the Potential Danger to Individuals of Rapid Coevolution.” Communications

of the ACM, vol. 61, no. 9, Sept. 2018, pp. 34–36. EBSCOhost, doi:10.1145/3213763.

Nair, Amal. “The 'Symbiosis' Between Human Brain And AI - Elon Musk.” Analytics India

Magazine, 17 Dec. 2018, www.analyticsindiamag.com/elon-musk-wants-to-create-

symbiosis-between-human-brain-and-ai/.

Sullivan, Paul. “Can Artificial Intelligence Keep Your Home Secure?” The New York Times, The

New York Times, 29 June 2018, www.nytimes.com/2018/06/29/your-money/artificial-

intelligence-home-security.html.

Vincent, James. “DeepMind's AI Is Teaching Itself Parkour, and the Results Are Adorable.” The

Verge, The Verge, 10 July 2017,

www.theverge.com/tldr/2017/7/10/15946542/deepmind-parkour-agent-reinforcement-

learning.