What’s The Impact Of Artificial Intelligence And Technology On Society
What do we need to consider about a future where artificial intelligence (AI) and tech have transformed the way we live? That was exactly what we pondered when I recently spoke withJamie Susskind, barrister, speaker and award-winning author of Future Politics: Living Together in a World Transformed by Tech.
Technology is changing society. Digitization is challenging the way we live. These changes create conveniences and ways of problem-solving that were never possible before. Along with the positives, there are also challenges that need to be overcome.
Here are three trends that are taking us to a phase of civilization that’s quite different than anything that’s come before.
We already live in a world where non-human systems can do things that previously only humans could do. In some cases, these non-human systems can do tasks even better than we can. Artificial intelligence can now mimic human speech, translate languages, diagnose cancers, draft legal documents and play games (and even beat human competitors). We’re already in a society where systems can accomplish tasks we didn’t believe would be possible in our time. The capabilities of non-human systems will continue to expand.
“This line between online and offline, real space and cyberspace is one that will become less important and less meaningful as time goes on. Systems are becoming more capable and more integrated into the world around us,” Susskind explained. It used to be very easy to distinguish between technology and non-technology. Today and increasingly in the future, technology will be dispersed in the world around us in objects and artifacts that we never previously thought of as technology such as smart homes with smart appliances and in public spaces in smart cities dense with sensors.
“We generate more data now every couple of hours than we did from the dawn of time to 2003. What that means is that when that data is caught, captured and sorted those who own it and control it have an insight into our lived experience beyond anything that anyone in the past could ever have dreamed of into what we think, what we care about, how we feel, where we go, what we buy, who we speak to, what we say, what we do on any given day, who we associate with. We leave a trail of these things which offers a window into our soul both individually and collectively that dwarfs anything that the philosophers or the kings or the priests of the past could have dreamed of,” Susskind explained.
These three trends are accelerating, and it seems highly unlikely that we as humans are going to be unchanged in the way we live together as a result of them. We’ve never had to live alongside such powerful non-human systems. We’ve never known what it’s like to be surrounded by technology that’s never switched off. We’ve never been in a world where our lives are datified to such as extent. In his book, Future Politics, Susskind examines these changes and proposes what we might need to do, theorize and think about regarding these changes as a society.
“The digital is political. Instead of looking at these technologies as consumers or capitalists we need to look at them as citizens. Those who control and own the most powerful digital systems in the future will increasingly have a great deal of control over the rest of us,” Susskind predicts.
Technologies exert power. They contain rules that the rest of us must follow and those who write the rules increasingly have a degree of power.
