AI has become nearly invisible, since it operates in the background or inside of products and services we use on a daily basis. We've gotten used to search engines, online shopping, language translation, and recommendations from streaming services and social networks. All of these are just a few examples of AI at work, helping us find what we're looking for or providing suggestions based on our interests.
Translating languages has become easier thanks to AI powered tools such as the one created by Meta (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Oculus). WhatsApp even offers AI generated stickers for more engaging conversations with you friends and family.
In fact, one could argue that most people who have access to the internet are already using AI! It may not be in the form pictured in science fiction movies and books - a robot with a mind of its own - but instead, it is being leveraged to assist humans with arduous, time-consuming, or supposed "menial" tasks.
From analyzing reams of documents in order to find answers to simple or complex questions, to reducing traffic congestion or saving time at work, AI is becoming an essential technology, capable of improving Google Maps navigation or finding answers quickly using Google itself by referencing search results.
For the majority of scientists, engineers, and researchers the concept of artificial general intelligence, which is no longer just capable of understanding and responding to very specific individual concepts, but is instead able to respond creatively and connect distinct ideas together, was for many years the "holy grail" of AI. Now we humans are able to interact naturally with these intelligences using natural language, instead of needing to possess computer programming or engineering skills. In mid-March 2023, OpenAI, the organization behind the Chat Generative Pre-Trained Transformer AI (ChatGPT) which has been making headlines, released the fourth version of their Large Language Model (LLM). Previous versions, still available for free, are used by thousands of people every day for countless professional and educational purposes. Several success stories already exist among teachers that encourage their students to use ChatGPT as a research and co-reading tool, but in an effective way so that students are still learning and not mindlessly copy-pasting answers. By using their imagination and inquisition and the help of an artificial intelligence, students are able to save time on monotonous tasks like research, text comprehension, and translation, dedicating more time to projects, reflection, and personal growth.
In the health sector, diseases can be identified in earlier stages, needle pricks are reduced, and records are better organized and protected from prying eyes with the help of AI-empowered machines operated by a nurse or doctor. In industry, markets, and the hands of important decision-makers, information is synthesized and organized in an automated fashion for clear-headed results. Here's an in-depth look from the Wall Street Journal: The Amazing Ways How Artificial Intelligence Is Transforming The Construction Industry.
Automation, privacy, and biases are some of the negative points. Currently, unionized school teachers in Los Angeles have been on strike for two weeks, and there have been several proposals to use AI-powered software to replace them; "AI is going to replace teachers very soon," states this Forbes article. On top of data privacy issues governments are already dealing with for giants like Meta and Google, "hallucinations", or incorrect statements, are a huge issue in large language models, and more often than not programs like DALLE-2 and StableDiffusion return the image of a white, beautiful person when asked for an image of a teacher or a nurse, due to the biases of the datasets they were trained on.
In short, AI is working silently in various fields, and education can be be improved by using it correctly. Artificial intelligence acts as an aid to human thinking, helping people save time. Remember that science and technology are here to stay!
