CM Strawn 9/27/2023

How AI Effects Society Today

Artificial intelligence is an everyday experience for most people. AI programs are embedded in the technology nearly everyone uses, from our computers to cell phones. Advertisers use these programs to track websites we visit to determine our demographic and buying habits to sell us their products or services.

Even Google Maps tracks our movements, determining where we shop to target which advertisements to post on our cell phones. Amazon also tracks our online purchases to target ads designed to entice us to purchase more.

Other applications use AI to enhance user experience and help direct the business’s advertising budget.

As a writer, I use an AI editing program to improve my writing. It offers suggestions to correct spelling, punctuation, grammar, sentences, and paragraph structure. I would be disadvantaged without it.

Let’s not forget the federal government’s artificial intelligence programs that track our every movement to determine our threat level – shades of George Orwell’s 1984.

Without realizing it, our individual lives as a society are directed and influenced by Artificial Intelligence. People used to know English mechanics from their education. They knew how to reference physical books to get answers to their questions. Now, a few words in the dialogue box of a browser produce hundreds, thousands, or millions of search results depending on how focused the search parameter is.

AI has made our lives easier and more convenient, making us weaker and more dependent.

Would the Absence of AI Hurt Our Culture?

Society, as a whole, has become dependent on artificial intelligence. The hard truth is that life as we know it would slow to a crawl without it.

The pace of twenty-first-century life has sped exponentially with the advent of labor-saving devices and software.

For instance, before the internet, simple research would have taken a day at the library and possibly a week for more complex queries. Today, after entering a few words in a search engine, that same research is accomplished in mere moments. For more complex investigations, it could take up to a few hours.

With the savings in time, there should be more time for leisure. However, technological advances have increased the workload, causing more stress and anxiety in the workplace.

The more addicted to the assistance of artificial intelligence we become, the less time we spend on personal interaction. We have been reduced to little more than androids responding to the demands of our electronic masters, encased in our cell phones and computers.

Without directions from our cyber overlords, society as we know it would cease to function. We would be plunged into a world one hundred-twenty years ago, devoid of modern technology, where people did things for themselves and helped each other– the old-fashioned way.

Is AI Making People More Dependent?

Nearly every facet of our society and the world has been invaded by artificial intelligence in the form of modern technology. Prominent examples are computers, including cell phones – which contain more computing power than the Space Shuttles had -television, automobiles, grocery stores, ground traffic, air traffic, and the list goes on.

Without these conveniences to direct and manage our lives, few would have the skills to function for themselves. Absent the influence of AI, most people would be at loose ends.

Without conscious thought, people depend on artificial intelligence to tell them what appointments they have, whom they should date, and when to celebrate birthdays, anniversaries, and holidays.

These applications operate with artificial intelligence.

If people need a ride somewhere, there’s an app for that. If they want to talk to someone face-to-face without physically being near the person, there’s an app for that. There’s an app for writing a note or letter to someone or a group without sending paper letters through the U.S. Postal Service (snail mail). Also, there’s an app for calling each other or a group of people in different cities or countries on the computer. And those are just a few examples of our dependency on AI technology.

Without AI, we would be crippled.

Will AI Take Over the World?

The question sounds ominous and apocalyptic, like something that will happen in a dark, dystopian world. That world is now. It is happening right before our very eyes. Artificial intelligence has a secure grip on the throats of society today. It is virtually directing our every move.

Dystopian science fiction depicting a world run by machines that herd people in large population centers like cattle to and from their appointed assignments is the world we live in.

Society runs on the schedule of the AI bot.

Many industries use these bots to ensure the smooth functioning of their company. AI bots are programmed to watchdog the cost efficiency of production, delivery, and customer satisfaction of their products and services. Coordination of personnel and labor is now the responsibility of artificial intelligence to maintain the functioning of a well-oiled machine.

Oblivion is the mentality of people today. Their lives are directed and controlled by computer programs. Will artificial intelligence take over the world?

I think it already has.