- Yeah.What influence does AI have in society?

The ever-increasing sophistication and AI capabilities are almost at a point where they will grow dramatically in both quantity and quality, producing numerous applications that in the past simply did not exist (or were not good enough to be used on a large scale). Because of this, several industries will be greatly affected beyond what can be predicted.

Concepts to take into account

• Auto Learning or Machine Learning (ML): It is a subfield of artificial intelligence dedicated to studying methods and algorithms that use data to identify patterns and learn without being explicitly programmed.

• Deep Learning or Deep Learning (DL): is a specific class of automatic learning, which uses artificial neural networks (systems modeled in the way biological neural networks work) to learn from exposure to large amounts of data.

• Artificial Intelligence (IA): is science that studies how to create intelligent machines, with an approach to intelligent computer programs.

• General Artificial Intelligence (IAG): is a form of AI in which a machine would have an intelligence that displays complex human traits, such as self-consciousness.

Now that we know these concepts, we start discussing the implications for the possible achievement of IAG.

The first we should know about IAG is that it is something that has not yet been achieved and, frankly, it will be difficult to know when it will happen exactly because these systems are designed with the human brain as reference, but we still do not have a complete understanding of how our brains actually work. However, it is estimated that the IAG will be reachable this century, with optimistic estimates around 2040 and pessimists around 2080.

When IAG finally becomes a reality, it will inevitably evolve to the point where its intellect is beyond what humans can understand, making it a really challenging scenario to describe without fantasizing. The resolution of extremely complex problems, such as precise modeling of weather patterns, the optimization of energy collection from fusion energy and the prediction of the result of pharmacological treatments will become reality. Significant advances in different fields of science will accelerate continuously, and in many cases we do not know how they will affect us. The truth is that IAG will be a very scarce resource and that governance and access will be the two most important challenges for our society. This is likely to mark the beginning of a period in human history that will be influenced by the "on-demand intelligence", where there are many exceptional applications for IAG, but only some will have the opportunity to experiment with it.

On the other hand, much of the progress we are reaching in AI today is driven by automatic learning and deep learning techniques, thanks to the correct combination of plenty of data for training and higher computing power. Powerful custom voice assistants and facial recognition systems are examples of everyday applications we use today, but that did not exist a few years ago.

More recently, we had a call of attention with the launch of ChatGPT, a powerful chatbot created by OpenAI company. The bot is based on the GPT-3 family of large language models and has already surpassed several high-level tests in areas such as medicine, business and law. It has been used to write complete articles and essays, create public discourses, create specific routines in the food and medical care industries, provide basic code for software applications and almost anything else you can imagine.

However, having observed a smart machine that can write and interact in a very natural way with humans is something that caused both expectation and fear in public opinion. This last is justified under the premise of how long until we simply cannot differentiate when we are interacting with a machine or a human being. There have also been concerns about how these smart machines can manipulate human behavior to perform specific tasks, as potential marketing and sales applications are increasingly abundant.

Again, we are seeing how AI will affect all aspects of our society, and it is not just about the displacement of work thanks to automation, or all the other good applications that will make life easier, it is about daily interactions between human beings and intelligent machines, with a plétora of possibilities that we do not even understand of everything.

In conclusion, artificial intelligence is driving a profound change in our society through multiple layers. It's changing the way we work, live and interact online, and it's having a disruptive impact on multiple industries with a number of possibilities we just start to imagine.

As the development of this technology grows rapidly, it is important to demand more transparency on multiple fronts, including how these systems train, what kind of ethical dilemmas lift and how we can distinguish when our interactions with both digital content, and with internet users, are with a human or a smart machine.