Culture

Uses and Trends

To many people culture, in a sense, is what makes us human. Since humans gained the ability to think we’ve been exploring the world trying to make sense of it all, and that desire to give meaning to what we see around us and how we interact with it is an extension of ourselves – and collectively our culture. With the introduction of AI we may be able to record, document, and analyze our distant and unique cultures in a way that will ensure it is preserved for the next generations. In an article posted by Forbes, Stephen Ibaraki discusses the various uses that AI will serve in analyzing our current cultural information, and how we can better preserve it. “Stretching over 20,000 kilometers, the Great Wall of China presents a daunting challenge to architects and historians working on its preservation. Certain areas are difficult to reach, and a manual examination of the Wall would be very tedious. Intel recently teamed up with the China Foundation for Cultural Heritage Conservation to use the latest drone technology to gather thousands of photos and then analyze the data with AI to pinpoint exact areas in the Wall that need restoration. With precise information about where repairs are needed and what is required, the work can be done much more quickly, efficiently and cost-effectively”, explains Alyson Griffin, Intel’s Vice President, global brand and thought leadership marketing.” (Ibaraki, 2019)

Disruptive Impact

One a separate note from the capacity AI has to help us preserve our culture for years to come, it also has the potential to destroy most of our culture as we now it. The Future of Life Institute discusses the importance of making sure AIs are aligned with humanities goes in this paragraph from their website. “In the long term, an important question is what will happen if the quest for strong AI succeeds and an AI system becomes better than humans at all cognitive tasks. As pointed out by I.J. Good in 1965, designing smart AI systems is itself a cognitive task. Such a system could potentially undergo recursive self-improvement, triggering and intelligence explosion leaving human intellect far behind. By inventing revolutionary technologies, such a superintelligence might help us eradicate war, disease, and poverty, and so the creation of strong AI might be the biggest event in human history. Some experts have expressed concern, though, that it might also be that last, unless we learn to align the goals of the AI with ours before it becomes super intelligent.” (Future of Life Institute).  

Predictions

“AI might be the biggest event in human history”…this bit of truth can be a little shocking when you think about all that humanity has accomplished, but in the end it is the truth. One can only hope that humanity has learned a valuable lesson from the Terminator movies and that one Black Mirror episode, that lesson being to make sure that we create an AI that wants to preserve humanity and not see humanity as a threat. In the coming future, AI will become more and more common place but we are still a little ways away from creating a super intelligent AI. I have hope that AI will benefit humanity in the long run, and maybe it might even be a little bit flattered that we consider it one of our greatest achievements.