Worried about robots taking your job? You can rest easy … for now
The subject of artificial intelligence (AI) and its potential ramifications generates a significant amount of debate and discussion. AI can mean different things to different people. Some may think of it as a catch all term for “smart robots” that can think like humans, but it’s a bit more nuanced than that. For its part, analytics business SAS states that AI “makes it possible for machines to learn from experience, adjust to new inputs and perform human-like tasks.”
Some have expressed genuine concern about the ramifications of AI. In 2014 the late scientist Stephen Hawking told the BBC that the “development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race.” In 2017, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos took a slightly different view when he said that we were in something of a “renaissance” and “golden age” when it came to the subjects of machine learning and artificial intelligence.Last month, a panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, looked at the topic again. According to one participant in the discussion, chaired by CNBC’s Steve Sedgwick, we’re still “way, way behind having thinking robots … that will do the work of humans.” “The key about AI is data,” Christopher A. “But anything new, anything that you need to stretch the way you are thinking about something, it (AI) won’t be able to do,” he added.