The Rise and Challenges of Artificial Intelligence

Source: The post The Rise and Challenges of Artificial Intelligence has been created, based on the article “Artificial intelligence: The latest opium of the masses” published in “Live mint” on 20th December 2024

UPSC Syllabus Topic: GS Paper3- Science and Technology- developments and their applications and effects in everyday life.

Context: The article compares AI to religion, highlighting its growing influence and appeal. It discusses both AI’s benefits, like solving global problems, and its failures, such as accidents and project failures. The author calls for a balanced, skeptical approach to AI’s potential and limitations.

For detailed information on Generative AI read this article here

What are the impacts of AI?

1. AI is captivating public attention, much like religion did in its prime. It promises convenience and efficiency.
2. AI is becoming an “addictive toy” that people use without fully understanding. Businesses globally adopted AI 270% more between 2015 and 2022.
3. The AI industry is projected to be worth $1.8 trillion by 2030. ChatGPT, for example, reached 100 million users in just two months.

How does AI benefit society?

1. Global Problem Solving: AI aids in tackling global challenges such as flood management and environmental cleanup. For instance, Google Flood Hub uses AI to provide advance flood alerts in 80 countries.
2. Environmental Impact: Organizations like The Ocean Cleanup utilize AI to map and remove ocean litter more efficiently, enhancing environmental sustainability.
3. Technological Advancements: AI tools like ChatGPT rapidly gain widespread use, demonstrating their popularity and utility in everyday tasks.
4. Productivity Boost: GenAI tools improve developer productivity by approximately 4% without compromising code quality, showing their potential to enhance software development efficiency.

What are the challenges of AI?

1. Unrealistic Expectations: The term “Artificial Intelligence” can create unrealistic expectations. Renaming it as “Systematic Approaches to Learning Algorithms and Machine Inferences” (Salami) could help manage expectations better.
2. Failures in Implementation: Many AI projects fail due to miscommunication, data issues, and high costs. About 30% of Generative AI projects are abandoned after the proof-of-concept stage, and over 80% of AI projects overall fail, according to studies.
3. High Failure Rate: Around 30% of Generative AI projects are abandoned after the proof-of-concept stage. Over 80% of AI projects fail, often due to miscommunication or data issues.
4. Limited Impact: A study showed GenAI only boosted developer productivity by 4%, with minimal impact on team performance or code quality.

Question for practice:

Discuss the benefits and challenges of AI as outlined in the article.