INQUISITIVE: SANDISK & WESTERN DIGITAL MERGER

SCHOLAR: A SOCIOLOGICAL APPROACH TO ARTIFICIAL INTELIGENCE

Technology can be defined as the application of scientific knowledge for functional uses. When it come to artificial intelligence, we must look into the past to see how these technologies will be executed.  The pre industrial world and the industrial revolution could be used as a template to analyze the emergence of artificial intelligence.  There are now companies creating and refining technology to produce, “smart,” devices.  Automated assistants such as Google, Cortana, Siri and Alexa are being integrated into modern devices.  The implication of these artificial intelligence is that they lack the ability for complex perceptual thinking.  Furthermore, they lack the emotional intelligence of humans.  This has divided silicone valley on the subject of ethics.  From a sociological perspective we can see conflicting beliefs on how this technology will affect society.  Thus, the inclusion of this technology is controversial.  

Thinkers such as Rene Descartes, Galileo Galilei, Nicolaus Copernicus, Isaac Newton, and Francis Bacon changed the pre industrial world.  Descartes came up with a way to analyze the universe.  His method included advanced reasoning.  He saw the world as a machine.  Galileo came up with the telescope which evidently discredited the church.  He applied scientific experiments and mathematical knowledge to thinking.  Copernicus developed a scientific theory which placed the sun at the center of the universe rather than the earth which was contrary to the churches teachings.  Newton discovered gravity.  Lastly Bacon developed an empirical method of looking at things.  He drew conclusions from testing things.  These people all caused the organic way of life to become scientific.  No longer was divinity the underlying factor of existence as science had replaced it.  The world became viewed as a machine.  The dominant yin view of nature was the ideology that dominated in the industrial revolution.  Nature was seen as a women to be exploited and pillaged for resources, the yang.  These people caused the church to loose its grasp on society as more modern mathematics and science emerged as viable ways of thinking (Jalowica, 2020).  Is a situation similar to this what is going to result from the development of artificial intelligence?

The industrial revolution brought about a new world centered in the idea that it was a machine.  We need to look at this from a contextual, critical, cultural and comprehensive way (Jalowica, 2020).  Contextually luminaries such as Galileo Galilee, Rene Descartes, Francis Beacon, Issac Newton etc. started the change of the organic view of the world to a scientific and mathematical view.  The population was booming and the quality of life improved as new inventions were being brought to market.  England’s laws were very pro capitalism which caused foreign investments.  They had many trade partners throughout the world which caused people to experience more wealth.  From a critical perspective new classes were emerging specifically the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.  This caused class conflict and exploitation.  Comprehensively, the view on society became fragmented into categories including arts, economy, politics, law, science, religion, value/ morality (Jalowica, 2020).  This new way of thinking caused new technology to emerge.  Technology could be looked at from three dimensions, cultural, technological and organization.  

Technology caused massive changes to the world.  Looking at the putting out system, the technical dimension, textile production is an example of the effect of technology on society.  There are four stages.  The first stage is the collection of raw goods or cotton.  Stage two consist of spinning the material with the spinning wheel.  The third stage consist of weaving with the hand loom and lastly stage four, is bleaching and dyes resulting in the finished product (Jalowica, 2020).  This system was drastically improved with the spinning jenny in stage two causing many to become unemployed and the power loom at stage three.  From the cultural dimension it becomes clear that these machines were tireless and very efficient for their time.  They brought these tasks from the house to factories as the capitalist class sought to exploit people.  Through textile England emerged as a superpower.  The industrial revolution occurred because of technological improvements, inanimate energy such as steam, and the increased cultivation of raw materials.  The way of living in England during the industrial revolution was so much better than competing countries.  Their people had more money to not only eat but to purchase goods.  Luxuries became affordable to its citizens.  The cost of labor however, increased.  But all in all people had higher purchasing power (Landes, 1969).  

Although artificial technology has many applications, with consideration of the industrial revolution, what’s alarming is that AI intends to replace actual people rather than older technologies, there are companies creating and refining technology to produce, “smart,” devices.  Artificial intelligence replaces the very faculty that makes humans a unique species, the mind and ultimately the human itself.  Automated assistants such as Google, Cortana, Siri and Alexa are being integrated into modern devices.  In the 2000’s there was a race to build the most sophisticated artificial technologies to be consumed by the mass market.  The first to be discussed is Google.  This assistant has massive reach as this artificial intelligence is based on the largest search engine on the web.  The next assistant is Cortana.  Microsoft currently has the largest market share in the PC market therefore, to count Cortana out would be a mistake.  This artificial intelligence has the ability to simply answer questions similar to Google.  Cortana also provides information on the Windows platform.  Although not as advanced as Google, Cortana certainly holds a significant edge regardless. Siri, the Apple artificial intelligence has similar capabilities as Cortana.  This artificial intelligence is exclusive to Apple products and may lack the extensive functions of Googles offering.  Lastly, Alexa, Amazons offering.  This assistant has had many scandals.  There are stories that Alexa eaves drops on conversations and even laughs.  This offering is made by one of the largest E business in the world, Amazon.  Its function is therefore similar if not even more advanced than Googles.  The main take away of the development of artificial intelligence is that these four companies have one thing all in common.  They are all trillion dollar companies as of current day.  This verifies Putin’s claim that that whomsoever makes the most advanced artificial intelligence is to rule the world (Meyer, 2017).  The truth in this statement can certainly be seen as these companies are the top of the fortune 500.  It is evident that they have managed to operate with such efficiency and prowess that eclipses the capabilities of man.

According to Frey and Osborne in their report, “THE FUTURE OF EMPLOYMENT: HOW SUSCEPTIBLE ARE JOBS TO COMPUTERISATION?” they find that 47% of the workforce will be subject to computerization.   They examined 702 occupations to estimate the probability that occupations would be affected.  Automation is not going to replace all jobs although the tech giants would like investors to believe.  The report explains that artificial intelligence and automation lack the ability to do three things which humans have the upper hand.  Firstly, they lack creativity.  They are therefore unable to or have difficulty creating or inventive ideas although technology is progressing to a state wherein computers and AI can be programmed to create literary works and the such. Second, they lack complex perceptual thinking, which is significantly well developed in people, this means that their ability to perceive events is not fully developed or must be programmed.  Third and lastly, these machines lack the ability to be able to display complex emotions.  Feelings such as empathy cannot be replicated therefore these machines cannot interpret emotion, which evidently leads to a disparity in communication when in contrast to humans (Frey, 2013).

An ethical dilemma can be explained as an event wherein it is increasingly difficult to make a choice or course of action (Allen, 2020).  Therefore, the creation of artificial intelligence is controversial because not only is it fully replacing the human but there’s a possibility that perhaps it can even become more intelligent than the average person.  Technology is supposed to make lives easier but at what cost?  CEO’s from Silicon Valley are very divided on this subject matter.  Elon Musk claims that the creation of artificial intelligence is like summoning a demon (Gibbs, 2014), while Mark Zuckerberg defends the development of AI.  What is alarming however though is the fact of the matter that he felt the need to shut down Facebook AI resulting from the fact of the matter that it started to create its own language which humans were unable to decode (Gupta, 2017).  This is the underlying problem that Elon was getting at.  Will the AI become more intelligent that the person?  The question here is, who are the people supposed to trust?  From a sociological perspective it becomes clear that these AI have a large effect on the population.  According to Michael Harris, the author of, “The End of Absence,” these artificial intelligence programs lack, “empathy,” which verifies the findings of Frey and Osborne.  Harris conducts an experiment in his book.  With regards to AI, he provided a transcript of a conversation he had with a program called ELIZA.  This experiment resulted with observations that these programs lack empathy.  This author mentions that the new technology of, “Affective computing,” is being worked on.  He also recognizes that moderators need to be able to monitor abuse but also he brought up the issue of a big brother scenario which could be cumbersome.  Harris furthers his examination on AI and talks about Alan Turing’s dream of a desire for a computer with empathy.  He discussed computers which could talk about consequences and such for hitting the send button on emails also mentioning computers that can instinctively tell its user to take deep breaths as they need and according to what they see on their social media.  Is this the future of Google, Cortana, Siri and Alexa?  It is not certain however what is, is the fact that these computers lack certain abilities that humans excel at which means that perhaps for the mean time they will not be replacing people.  

Technology was designed to make life easier.  From the invention of fire to artificial intelligence, human beings have come a long way.  The industrial revolution is important to the study of technology because it gives people an idea of what how technology will be handled.  The creation of assistants such as Google and Cortana are important developments in societies technological portfolio and have enriched the corporations who own them.  These technologies currently lack complex skills that humans may possess, which is a good thing.  As these differences disappear society will see a great division emerge.  CEO’s of companies are already deliberating on these and hopefully they can create intuitive solutions for these possible problems. 

REFERENCES

Jalowica, Ken.  (2020).  Sociology Technology and Society.  Sociology3210.  Surrey:  Kwantlen Polytechnic University.  April 10, 2020. 

Landes, David S.  (1969).  The Unbound Prometheus:  Technological Change and the Industrial Development in Western Europe from 1750 to the Present.  Cambridge University Press.

Meyer, David.  (2017).  Vladimir Putin Says Whoever Leads in Artificial Intelligence Will Rule the World.  Fortune Magazine. 

Allen, Karen (2020).  What Is an Ethical Dilemma? The New Social Worker.  Retrieved from:  https://www.socialworker.com/feature-articles/ethics-articles/What_Is_an_Ethical_Dilemma%3F/

Gibbs, Samuel.  (2014).  Elon Musk: artificial intelligence is our biggest existential threat.  The Guardian.  Retrieved from:  https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/oct/27/elon-musk-artificial-intelligence-ai-biggest-existential-threat

Gupta, Sanchi.  (2017).  Mark Zuckerberg Shuts Down Facebook’s Artificial Intelligence After It Develops Its Own Language.  SW.  Retrieved from:  https://www.scoopwhoop.com/mark-zuckerberg-shuts-facebooks-artificial-intelligence/

Frey, Carl Benedikt et al.  (2013). THE FUTURE OF EMPLOYMENT: HOW SUSCEPTIBLE ARE JOBS TO COMPUTERISATION.  Oxford Martin School.  Retrieved from:  https://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/downloads/academic/The_Future_of_Employment.pdf

Harris, Michael.  (2014).  The End of Absence. Toronto, Ontario, Canada.