AI is shaping our world
Esseen tyyppi: Yksilöessee / 2 esseepistettä.
First signs of AI taking over
First McDonald’s restaurant where you are served by robots already exists. It is in Fort Worth, Texas. At this exact time, there is only one McDonald’s which is completely automated like this as the experiment is still in its early stages. This technology used in a McDonald’s restaurant is the latest move towards the “Accelerating the Arches” growth strategy which focuses on innovation and improved customer experience. The concept restaurant is much smaller than a usual McDonald´s restaurant as it is targeted towards customers who want to eat at home or on the go. Inside the building, there are pick-up rooms where couriers can retrieve their orders without a hassle. The drive-through works by voice assistant and the placed orders are delivered by a robot. There are several parking spots for pick-ups and designated parking for delivery drivers.
This concept has divided people´s opinions. Some people say it may be ethically questionable and other people are very excited and welcoming of this technological advantage in the fast-food industry. The prices of fast food are most likely going to drop if this implementation gets wind under its wings. As there is no need to pay salaries to employees the cost of the end-product drops drastically. This AI-powered McDonald´s is the perfect place for people who want their burgers to be delivered fast and don’t see the customer service a real person can provide as something important when choosing a place to pick food from.
The importance of critical thinking
The only thing that is going to differentiate us from AI in the future is critical thinking. Why critical thinking you may ask? Critical thinking as it is something a machine is not able to do. Resuming a book and spitting everything out on an exam sheet is something a machine can do in seconds. Instead of that doing a critical analysis of the book and challenging what is being said by bringing in your own opinions is something a machine is not able to do. And this right here is the main problem of education nowadays. Kids are being taught to read books and spit all the information from their temporary memory into an exam sheet. A method used in traditional schools all over the world. This type of data vomiting sticks into your temporary memory but shortly after disappears into the unknown as it is not needed anymore. A change in education is most likely not going to happen as society values grades more than real learning. The academic world sees kids with good grades as intelligent individuals who have high chances of being successful even though they function in the same way as an AI research machine. Kids who can implement their own knowledge into the book’s information are the ones who have really understood the content of the book and therefore it sticks in their minds for a long time. When associating new learnings with something you already know is the key maintain new information in long-term memory.
What is intelligence?
To be what we say an “intelligent” person you need critical thinking. People who have read a lot of books are not intelligent. They become intelligent the moment when they generate an analysis of those books in their own head. Otherwise, the only thing they are doing is memorizing what has been said in the book which can be done by a kid. A great example of this is Elon Musk who is a genius of our generation. Musk is not a person who has read books about manufacturing electric cars, generating PayPal, SpaceX, or Neuralink. The key to his success is that he is able to identify himself to whom to listen and to whom not to listen. A great leader can listen to other people and make rational decisions by himself. And a person with this ability is truly an intelligent person. Filling yourself with knowledge and not doing anything with it is not intelligence. People can not compete with data collection AI in data collection so memorizing something from a book is utterly useless.
Modern AI is able to improve by itself. Tesla autopilot can improve day by day as it collects data from thousands of cars around the world analyzing people’s driving tendencies. If a pothole is being hit while driving on autopilot the car sends information to a server which is processed by an AI to improve the system and make sure the next Tesla car on autopilot doesn’t commit the same mistake.
“The rate of change increases exponentially against the passing of time.”
Robotic technology combined with AI and self-learning machines is going to generate ridiculously low prices. Robots don’t need rest so they can work 24/h a day without any excuses or sick leaves. Elon Musk predicted this earlier than anyone else in 2017 by saying that in the future only a hand full of people will have jobs and prices will be on the floor. The problem with this is that as workplaces don’t require employees’ people are going to be paid minimum salaries just for being alive. This is going to cause the government to dictate what you can say and do. We can see this already in places like Dubai where the government takes care of everything for you and there are no taxes for the price of you not having freedom of speech. The biggest and most harsh problem AI may cause is that people may feel they don’t have a purpose in their life. And when people feel they don’t have a purpose in their lives they fall into a bad mental state. And this is what may lead us into the biggest deflation of our history. Robotization is now in its initial stages but in the space of the next ten years, we are going to see more and more fields get run over by robotization, AI, and machine learning. In order to be indispensable, we must focus on adding as much value as possible to ourselves by being able to increase our level of critical thinking. By not just reading information from books and reciting what you have read but by making complex analyzes of what you have learned. Because if you are not more intelligent and valuable than those machines you are part of the minimum salary.
Sources:
Newsweek, Welcome to the First Ever McDonald’s Where You’re Served by Robots—In Texas, 22.12.2022
What's your reaction?
Post a Comment
