We are living in a digital era, where every one of us heavily relies on technology for virtually everything. The continued AI advancements are reshaping our lives changing every facet of it. Tasks that are hard for us, a machine can easily accomplish. Just look at your present, when humans are enjoying a digital and healthy life, and then look back at the 18th and 19th centuries when sickness and disasters were prevailing everywhere and your loved ones were sweeping away by chronic diseases like cancer, cholera, and river blindness, when human life was quite tough as high-tech machines were not as common as today. Thanks to AI! Today everything of our needs is at our fingertips and easily accessible to us. AI is so plunged into our lives that it has become an integral part of our routine. Most of us are encountered with AI in offices, homes, vehicles, and smartphones, etc., from morning until late at night. If someone, say from the 1950s journeyed through time and reached back in 2021, it would be astonishing for him to see how we are using our smartphones for navigation purposes, and how virtual assistants like Cortana and Alexa are responding to our inquiries. He would be baffled by our obsession with social media apps like Facebook, Twitter, etc. At present, AI-powered inventions that are normal to us would be something supernatural for anyone from that past. Life without AI would be just like the life of that friend from the past.
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Life 3.0: Being Human in the Age of Artificial IntelligenceAI – a “can’t-live-without” Technology
No one in this world can deny the enormous supernatural benefits AI is delivering to human beings at present. AI can be considered as an interface for all ages, and an exciting opportunity for every business domain. It is intertwined in our daily routine in such a way that it’s really hard to imagine our life when there is no AI. Truly speaking, a life without AI is just like a horror dream no one desires for.
Just imagine, one day you wake up and realize that AI is lost from your life all of a sudden, how would you feel? It might be the same feeling when you put your hand in your pocket for your smartphone and you suddenly realize that it’s not there. Your heart will start sinking; your mind will be going to burst. You would not be even able to put the status of “My Mobile Lost” on Facebook or Whatsapp, or could not even tweet about that. The same would be the scenario if there is no AI in our lives. As we have tasted the flavor of AI, it would be hard for us to digest the thought of life without AI.
According to Mathew Kibby, VP at Sage,
“If we were to strip away AI from the world as we know it today, I’m not convinced humans would know how to cope with work and life.”
Why Machines Will Never Rule the World: Artificial Intelligence without FearAI – making our present and future magnificent
AI market is advancing at an exponential rate, though AI is just at its initial phase by far. According to MarketsandMarkets forecast, AI market size will reach $58.3 billion in 2021, and will rise to $309.6 billion by 2026, at 39.7% CAGR. With all its advancements, AI is reforming our present and is all set to offer us a magnificent future in many ways improving our work efficiencies and human abilities. AI advancements occurring at a breakout pace are redefining the relationship of humans with machines. Japanese researchers are going to build the fastest supercomputer to be used in AI projects. This supercomputer will be making 130 quadrillion calculations each second. We can ask anything from Siri, and it can explain every minute detail about the question far better than humans. Talking about the voice assistants, in the future, besides answering our queries and entertaining us, they will be performing some tasks as well. Say for example, while focusing on our most important and urgent task, we would be assigning the other relevant tasks to a voice assistant, and it would be able to perform that task even. For example, we would be just asking a voice assistant to do a task like printing a page or opening a document, and it will be even performing that task for us. Hence, AI has a long way to make our lives much easier and enjoyable.
Adversities in our lives without AI
Life without AI would be pretty much like it was around 10 years ago when there was hardly any common person talking about AI or using its applications other than in sci-fi movies. AI made remarkable progress within the next decade, however, we are still at the baby steps of its concept and there is a long way to reach when we will be enjoying AI in its full essence. Based on the convenience, AI is offering to humans, we cannot imagine our lives without it. Let’s discuss some major issues we would be facing if AI disappears from our lives:
Unsafe Navigation
In this fast-moving world, AI has made it impossible for us to get lost with its global positioning system (GPS) installed in our cars, smartphones, or any other device. It’s easy for us to identify our live location and reach the destination by simply following the directions. Without AI, traveling would be not as easy as it is today. Just imagine a few years back, when there was no AI-powered GPS to guide us. We had to follow the address of the locations shared by someone. It was quite a hard and time-consuming task to reach a destination.
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A World Without Work: Technology, Automation, and How We Should RespondNot just road navigation, the entire aircraft industry will also be disturbed without AI. The aircraft industry is also using AI for safer navigation and a lot of other purposes. Are you aware of the fact that the pilots of the Boeing 777 can fly the plane just for seven minutes, while most of the rest of the flying process is completed by AI technology? Now just imagine how scary this scenario would be for the aviation industry as well as the passengers if there is no AI!
Poor entertainment
From composing an attractive composition to automating the monotonous tasks and creating breathtaking scenes with the augment and virtual reality, AI is doing miracles for us. It is offering a personalized experience to us. Whether, it is Netflix, YouTube, or Amazon Prime, AI is offering personalized services. We can even search for a product with an image or video. Based on our interests and choices, AI offers suggestions for the most suitable product or video that we might like. Netflix reports that 80% of what we watch today is based on Netflix recommendations. Without AI, we would have to waste hours surfing the internet for a good movie. AI is also enabling real-time streaming for us. It is helping the entertainment industry to customize and transmit content in real-time. According to research, by 2022 live streaming videos will hold 82% of all traffic on the internet.
Today, our smartphones are not just phones for us; they have become a digital security and a sort of entertainment that is all day available for us. Generally speaking, the entire human life revolves around this seductive little device. A survey in a Time Mobility Poll revealed that 84% of people admitted they could not spend even a single day without their smartphones. Isn't it a sort of wonder that human beings can survive without food for almost 3 weeks and without water for 3-7 days, but can't survive without phones for just a single day? It's just because of AI being used in these tiny creatures – the smartphones. In this digital life, most of our routine activities are being carried out with the help of AI-powered smartphones. Whether it's about scheduling a meeting through Alexa or Siri, entertainment through apps like Facebook, Netflix, online shopping through Amazon, or traveling by using GPS, etc. AI is working behind all these activities. If there is no AI, our life will be stuck at most of our routine activities and will become slow and boring, as we will be lacking most of the entertainment easily accessible to us.
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Four Futures: Life After CapitalismBesides delivering an entertaining experience AI is also enabling the entertainment industry to improve its marketing and advertising campaigns as well. It has simplified the process of designing and promoting a movie or event. Without AI, the entertainment industry will have to spend a lot of time and resources on marketing and advertising campaigns. A well-known AI tool, Alibaba Luban, is fastening the marketing process and producing almost 8000 promotional banners per second – an impossible task to be accomplished without AI.
Reduced Business Productivity
With AI, say for example in the manufacturing industry, most of the processes have been automated like identifying a product defect in the assembly line, and supply chain management, etc.
If there is no AI, the scalable efficiency of an AI system will be replaced by humans; hence a task that could be accomplished in a matter of seconds by an AI system would take plenty of time with associated fear of being inaccurate. Moreover, work efficiency in a business will be decreased as humans will have to perform mundane tasks instead of AI-powered machines. Detecting the defects in a product is a hectic job for humans as many defects are too minute to be visible with the human eye. Such mundane tasks would not only make the workforce tired but also add up the operational cost for the business and decrease productivity.
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Genius Makers: The Mavericks Who Brought AI to Google, Facebook, and the WorldReduced Cybersecurity
AI is extremely helpful for organizations to enhance their cybersecurity approach based on AI codes, configurations, and activity monitoring. AI can identify and fight intruders more promptly with a high level of accuracy. It can also identify suspicious activities on a website. For instance, Google blacklists more than 10,000 websites per day for having malicious software and 50,000 websites per week for online scamming. In banks, the Feedzai platform is not just warning about human fraud but also speeding up the process of fraud detection.
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Moreover, life without AI will prevail with data breaching and other cybersecurity threats. Our lives and data will not be as safe as they are today. Most of our confidential information will be easily breached by intruders. It will even increase the cost as a report suggests that recovering from a data breach costs $3.86 million worldwide, involving more than 196 days completing the data recovery process. As per Sapin, identification and combating of intruders is more prompt and accurate with AI rather than without it. Hence, the world without AI would be more indulged with fraudulent activities and cybersecurity intimidation.
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More Disastrous and Hostile Environment
AI anticipates many disasters like wildfire, storms, etc., and is helping us in real-time disaster management. It helps the authorities to get the inhabitants out of the dangerous place and move them to some safer location. Without AI, the predictions about weather, storms, or any other upcoming disaster would not be as accurate as with AI, hence our lives and properties would be more at risk of being lost without AI.
Moreover, humans will have to perform in even a hostile environment, for example, exploring space, defusing a bomb, etc., that an AI-based robot could easily do. Human lives will be more at risk of being lost in such hazardous activities. Just recall the year 1986, when Chernobyle Nuclear Plant exploded in the Soviet Union. As there were no AI-powered robots at that time, which resulted in the loss of 30 precious lives that could be saved if AI was there to overcome human limitations.
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Space exploration is a difficult task for humans; therefore AI-driven exploration programs like Mars Curiosity Rover are working to explore space. Curiosity is a robot powered by AI and landed on Mars in 2012 and is still there exploring the red planet. It’s impossible for a human being to survive in space for such a long time if there is no AI-powered robot.
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No Digital Voice Assistants
AI is extensively being employed in digital voice assistants like Siri, Alexa, and Cortana, etc., where natural language processing is used to answer your queries. Whether it’s about getting directions about your dinner spot or inquiring about the weather, digital voice assistants are helping us. They assist us in the car, work, restaurants, homes, etc. These voice assistants can answer our queries, play music, and tell jokes and much more to entertain us. Moreover, these can control many things in our homes from lights, fans, to door locks.
AI assistants are helping business owners by automatically updating their customer records, tracking to-do lists, and handling hundreds of emails on daily basis. ALL of these tasks are performed by AI without putting any effort from our side. Without AI, businesses would be managing their customer records and data manually which is a tedious and hectic job wasting plenty of valuable time. With this hectic life without AI, we would not be able to dedicate our precious time to our family and own health.
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Without AI, the fields that deal with customers would be relying on IVR customer service instead of AI-powered voice assistants. IVR (interactive voice response) lacks learning capabilities and can't respond to a customer promptly and accurately. Businesses would be delivering a poor customer experience as the queries would be resolved in several hours that an AI-powered voice assistant could resolve in a matter of seconds.
Poor Research
Today, most of us spend most of our time while searching Google to find an answer to what's striking in our mind or to find content on some research topic. There is massive material on the internet on a single topic, that it is even hard to find the most relevant and reliable one. AI-based algorithms have improved the search results offering us the most related keywords and tools to get the content from authentic websites.
The search engines can’t explore the entire internet to promptly find out the most related data for us if they are not powered with AI. There would also be no Alexa or Siri, to manage our Google searches. Hence, without AI, we would be spending several hours surfing on the internet that could be done in a matter of seconds with AI. Even then the content found might not be related and authentic.
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Moreover, there would be no automatic editing and proofreading, and a writer will have to face great difficulty. There would be no Grammarly tool to check to spell, and grammar, etc., and the writer will either have to consult a dictionary or go to some editor to enable his manuscript worth reading. The life of a researcher also seems to be quite hard without AI.
Poor Healthcare systems
AI is not just enhancing our quality of life; it is saving our lives as well. There was a time when human life was at risk with even a simple cold. As time passed, the healthcare sector introduced effective treatments for serious ailments. At present, advanced scanners and AI-powered technologies like PathAI, and Zebra Medical Vision are detecting the smallest changes in our body to diagnose a life-threatening disease at the initial stages to save precious lives. Handicapped are also enjoying their life with robotic limbs. Several companies are researching and investing huge amounts in AI to boost the healthcare system. From discovering personalized drugs to modern diagnostic tools and even robots performing surgeries, AI is revolutionizing our healthcare system identifying disease at the most initial stage, providing treatment just for a short time with highly advanced machines, and saving our dear ones.
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Without AI diagnosis of chronic disease would involve huge time and thousands of scans that an AI-based system can do in a matter of seconds. Patients would be losing their lives due to misdiagnosis. According to a study, before incorporating AI in the healthcare system, 10% of US deaths that counted for above 250,000 humans were caused due to misdiagnosis or medical errors. If there is no AI, our life will be much depressed as it would be heart-wrenching to see our dear ones dying due to medical errors or bearing the pain of a long treatment process of a disease diagnosed at its last stage.
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Wrapping Note
From searching for a query or product to the goods that reach our door with a single click, AI has become a “can’t-live-without” technology for us. If AI is removed from our lives, we would have a backward shift in many fields of life including technology, science, healthcare, research, transportation, and entertainment. A life – when there would be neither any Google map to guide us about locations, nor Alexa or Siri to optimize our Google searches or plan a meeting. We will not be even able to track our orders and find out the delivery time. We would lack automation in marketing and business insights as well as future predictions. There would be no robots to do heavy and dangerous tasks, no interactive applications to entertain us, and no supercomputers. The business operations will be more time-taking, costly, and less productive, as we would be putting more effort and time into doing repeated tasks. All this routine will keep us stressed out rather than enjoying quality time with family. Exhausted with our hectic routine, we would be looking for some easily accessible entertainment that would not be even possible if there is no AI. We would be wasting a lot of time on the internet browsing for some good movie or song that the AI recommendation engine could easily do for us. In short, we will be having a hideous life in all spheres for sure. Our lives would be very slow, hectic, disorganized, and boring. We would be investing massive efforts to accomplish our minor routine tasks, leaving less or no time for our loved ones.
In this article, we have just scraped the surface of what AI is delivering to us, making our lives convenient. Generally speaking, humans and AI are co-evolving. If one is removed from this combo, the existence of the other would be quite difficult.