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As you’re likely well aware if you’re browsing on this site, AI has come a very long way in recent years, from helping our homes to “learn” and get smarter, to assisting in the handling of serious diseases. It’s now fair to characterize AI not just as something that’s interesting or teeming with possibility, but as one of the most important and influential areas within the tech world.
As can be the case with tech advancements though, AI has only gotten more difficult to keep track of and analyze as it’s grown more influential. So now and then it helps to stop and think about how exactly it’s poised to affect our day-to-day lives! We don’t have a comprehensive list to answer these queries, but below are some of the things to keep an eye out for as AI becomes more widely influential.
AI Vehicles
One of the main stages right now for the advancement of AI is its implementation into cars in the effort to create driverless vehicles. There are plenty of different companies trying their hands at using related technologies in their latest models, with some of the standouts being Google and Tesla. The ramifications of this type of AI implementation are obvious: no more human drivers on the road means less damage and fatalities as a result of human error, at least if we get it right.
Naturally, this has all made way for complex moral questions, such as whether or not it is ethical to program AI to prioritize one life over another. AI driving will also mean that people will have less experience driving,
which obviously won’t do in the event that such people need to drive themselves. Analysis and informed speculation suggest that truly advanced AI vehicles will reduce the overall damage and issues caused by cars of today. But they’ll also require a great deal of adjustment, which will ultimately make them far more important to our day-to-day existence than most AI developments.
AI In The Workplace
While there are plenty of jobs that AI will never be able to replace, we’re fast approaching a world where many menial and labor jobs are set to be taken over by various AI systems and entities. Already, there exist simple robots that have been taking over these kinds of jobs in certain places.
Where there were once waiters and waitresses serving drinks to patrons at casinos, now there exist robots in the same position: offering drinks to thirsty casino-goers. In fact, even casino dealers may be on the verge of being replaced. The advent of modern poker sites even in New Jersey and some other parts of the U.S. where casino games have typically been prohibited is making a bigger audience used to digitally automated games, perfect moderation, and provable fairness – all of which can be enjoyed in person with a robotic dealer.
These may just be a few specific jobs, and not in a sector most of us worry about – but they’re existing examples how AI can lead to workplace takeovers that go beyond simply making some computer-based jobs obsolete.
AI Assistance
In the modern world, many of us already have regular access to AI through our phones, even if we don’t think of it this way consciously. We might ask it questions, take its suggestions on what to say, and listen to or watch content based on the AI’s recommendations (which are based in turn on what it’s learned about us).
For better or worse, modern smartphones are probably the most common and most prominent objects that feature AI today, and the kind of basic assistance offered by this form of AI is starting to be available in other aspects of life as well.
Consider the smart home trend, for instance, which isn’t brand new but is still coming into its own. There are now homes in which the thermostat itself learns your preferences for temperature, knows when you’ll be in and out of the house, and adjusts itself automatically in order to make you most comfortable and help you save on energy costs.
Some of these homes also contain “smart” refrigerators that track contents and automatically form grocery lists accordingly. And we might not be too far, looping in the idea of AI transportation once more, from homes that can essentially communicate your routine to a vehicle such that it picks you up for work right on time.
As stated, this is not meant to be a comprehensive overview of the state of AI as it relates to ordinary people. However, these examples do demonstrate how close several major innovations are to becoming widespread realities, and how we’ll all soon be affected by improving AI.