Global AI Summit 2023: Artificial Intelligence and Its Applications, Advantages, and Drawbacks

PWOnlyIAS January 08, 2024 05:28 2207 0

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The UK recently hosted a global AI summit 2023 on November 1 and 2 in London.

Global AI Summit 2023: Artificial Intelligence and Its Applications, Advantages, and Drawbacks

Context: The UK recently hosted a global AI summit 2023 on November 1 and 2 in London.

What is the Global AI Summit 2023?

Objective of the Global AI Summit 2023: To find some level of international coordination regarding some principles on the ethical and responsible development of AI models.
Participants of the Global AI Summit 2023: The summit will host representatives from government as well as private companies.
Area of Focus: The AI summit will be focusing on the “frontier AI” models, which are the advanced large language models.
Issues to be Addressed: The summit seeks to address two key categories of risk when it comes to AI: misuse and loss of control.
- Misuse means AI helping a bad actor in committing actions that can affect the safety and security of the world.
- Loss of control pertains to the situation when the AI that humans create could be turned against them.
Significance of the Global AI Summit 2023: The AI summit is a significant achievement for bringing together the right kind of people associated with AI to discuss frontier challenges.
- The summit will not only look at addressing the safety, ethics, and responsible development of AI, but also calling for collaboration at a global level.

Also Read: Global Partnership On Artificial Intelligence – GPAI

What is Artificial Intelligence?

ai summit 2023

Artificial Intelligence is a segment of Computer Science that has the potential to perform tasks commonly associated with human cognitive functions. It allows computers to learn and solve problems like humans.
- These functions include interpreting speech, playing games, identifying patterns, generating arts, etc.
Applications of Artificial Intelligence:

- Healthcare: AI can help provide personalized medicine and X-ray readings. It can analyze reports in a better way and make accurate diagnoses. Ex: Cancer diagnosis.
- Robotics: AI can help robots learn the processes and perform the tasks with complete autonomy, without any human intervention. Ex: Bomb Disposal.
- Transport: Driverless vehicles have been developed as a part of Artificial Intelligence (AI). Ex: Self-driving taxis.
- Banking and finance: AI bots, digital payment advisers, and biometric fraud detection are some of the applications of AI in banking and finance.
- Security: AI facial recognition tools may be used for surveillance and security purposes to identify criminals. Ex: Terrorist identification.
- Agriculture: AI can analyze crop health by looking at images of crops and suggesting appropriate amounts of fertilizers and water. It can also predict yields. Ex: Output analysis.
- Education: AI can be used to develop educational content, which could convey knowledge in an effective way. Ex: Self-learning software.

What are the Advantages of Artificial Intelligence?

Reduces Human Error: Humans, assisted by AI, can commit fewer mistakes as the system is free from issues that plague human abilities such as fatigue.
Reduce Risks: AI-assisted systems can be programmed to perform risky jobs that can potentially harm human lives.
Full-time Availability: Unlike humans, AI systems can function without break. They can assist customer queries even in the middle of the night.
Efficient use of Work-force: AI can perform mechanical tasks that do not require much skill, such as sending acknowledgement mails, verifying documents etc.
Speedy Decisions: AI systems can make decisions faster than humans. These decisions are not just fast but also accurate. Ex: Actions to be taken in case there is a radiation leak.
Making Life Easy: AI powered assistance devices can act as personal assistants, making it easy for the user to carry out day to day tasks. Ex: Alexa, Siri etc.

What are the Drawbacks of Artificial Intelligence?

Security Threats: AI can be used to assist criminals in launching cyber-attacks or help terrorists in planning chemical attacks. Ex: Developing Virus programme.
Environmental Concerns: To operate AI, it needs a lot of electricity. Going by the numbers, excessive use of AI can lead to increase in global warming as well as carbon footprint. Ex: Running supercomputers require high amounts of power.
Data Privacy: AI systems need access to large amounts of data sets to train effectively. This raises concerns about data privacy and potential misuse of the same.
Data Poisoning: It refers to inaccurate or biased outcomes based on input data manipulation. Criminals can insert malicious data into an AI system’s training to compromise its performance. Ex: Gender bias.
High Cost of Operation: Designing and maintaining AI systems need huge costs. In addition, regular updates have to be made.

How Can Artificial Intelligence Lead to Job Losses?

AI has the potential to replace the equivalent of 300 million full-time jobs across the globe in the near future.
This is mainly in the sectors which involve mechanical repetitions.

How Can Artificial Intelligence Pose a Threat to Human existence?

AI can be designed to go beyond safe levels and assist humans in developing methods that can eliminate the whole world.
methods of human elimination include nuclear war, chemical war, biological war, cyber war etc.

What are the Ethical Concerns Associated with Artificial Intelligence?

Violation of Privacy: Surveillance practices for data gathering affects privacy of individuals. Ex: Data on an individual’s health.
Non-transparent Functioning: There is no clarity regarding how a particular AI programme functions. The basis of evaluation is also not known.
Partiality: AI systems are not always neutral. They are biased and may function based on the biased thinking of its programmer. Ex: Political affiliation of the programmer.
Gender Bias: AI is known to show gender bias while representing male and female. This is due to the stereotypical representations in our society. Ex: All women are bad drivers.
Accountability: AI systems do not have an accountability mechanism to take responsibility for its actions, which could have a larger impact on society. Ex: Deepfakes.

What is the Potential for Artificial Intelligence in the future?

Prediction and Forecasting: AI could be used for making predictions based on available data. It will help individuals plan their future.
Mimic Human Actions: AI chatbots are being developed that can actually use websites and software applications as a human does.
Artificial General Intelligence (AGI): The future of AI is AGI, which is an AI machine that can perform any task the human brain can do.
Manipulative AI: As AI starts becoming smarter and starts to mimic humans, it will no longer be bound by the programmer’s barrier. It can even lie, if prompted by the user.

What has India done to Regulate Artificial intelligence?

India’s Policy: India’s policy on AI regulation has oscillated between no regulation and regulation based on user harm.
Reason for Policy: With minimal regulation, India hopes to create an innovation-friendly environment that could potentially propel it to global leadership.
Regulation Efforts: In terms of regulation, India’s regulatory landscape for AI is fragmented, with various ministries and committees addressing different aspects.
- Currently, India is trying to bring in an AI regulation law by modeling it on existing global laws. However, India’s situation is different from other countries.

Conclusion

Artificial Intelligence is indeed the future of the world but its action must align with human values and legal framework. In addition, the ethical use of AI must be prioritized.