The Internet of things, artificial intelligence, and robotics are going to affect our lives more than anything else. With these technologies, life will become a lot easier and businesses more efficient and profitable. There are many drawbacks as well. This has to do with employment prospects and if some prominent scientists are to be trusted, artificially intelligent machines might one day turn on their creators and destroy all humanity.
The Internet of things is expected to connect people, data, processes, and devices on a vast scale by the end of the decade – an unbelievable 50 billion connections. Before one starts worrying about the chances of humanity being at risk from a take-over by machines, one needs to make out how the opportunities presented by the Internet of things are put to proper use, which in itself will require some effort.
The biggest existential threat to us will not be from Science fiction movies like scenarios where artificially intelligent machines and robots will rebel against humans, but by the security vulnerability that this vast convergence could give rise to. A less than perfectly designed system could for example impact the whole network and lead to catastrophic results on an extraordinary scale.
Considering that real artificial intelligence is presently at a beginning stage, it is rather silly to be tilting at windmills when we worry about the danger it poses to humans. Let us learn to fully obtain the benefits that the Internet of things, artificial intelligence, and smartly evolving robotic technologies bring to us. When needed we will ourselves find the solution to any potential danger in the future. We always have. The industrial revolution, when it started in the eighteenth century, spread similar dread and trepidation, but things worked out more or less fine at the end of it. There were really serious social and economic consequences of that revolution that had to be overcome before things settled down.
Youngsters should be prepared to handle these emerging technologies in the meantime as this will help them find employment in the times ahead. There will of course be job losses for some on account of the increase in all-round automation, but there will be other opportunities aplenty for those who anticipate and prepare for the paradigm shift in the way businesses and organizations will conduct their affairs in the times ahead. We are entering very interesting times indeed.
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