As the data-driven world marches towards the unprecedented fourth industrial revolution, machine learning, and artificial intelligence technologies have mainstream. Although AI emerged in the 1950s, it’s until 2001 when AI technologies started to surge on the market (Russell and Norvig 17). AI has increasingly become part of human’s life affecting people’s interaction, work, travel, and shop. AI is no longer science fiction and its application has no limits. Notable tech leaders reiterate AI as ubiquitous innovations in history. Google CEO, Sundar Pichai, asserts that “AI is one of the most important things humanity is working on. It is more profound than, I don’t know, electricity or fire,”.
From simple virtual assistant devices such as Amazon Alexa to Uber’s self-driving cars, medical diagnosis to the autonomous weapon, AI adoption is rapidly taking hold worldwide with potentially revolutionary effect. Although AI is yet to realize wide-scale commercial deployment, companies that build or utilize AI are growing exponentially. The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) estimates a 6* increase in Venture Capital investments in AI startups and thousands of AI startups multiplying by 14* since 2000. WIPO reports accelerated growth in AI invention patents amounting to 340,000 and over 1.6 million scientific publications. Statistics forecast that AI will contribute 26% growth of the global income by 2030 (WIPO). From adoption by multinational corporations such as Tesla, Microsoft or Shell to startups such as Soundhound or Megamind, AI has been streamlined in today’s business.

Artificial Intelligence is the simulation of human-like- intelligence and processes such as learning, reasoning and corrective action by coded software are entailing detailed instructions (Russell and Norvig). The algorithms coded by software enable machines to perform myriad of tasks such as complex patterns recognition, information synthesis, deriving conclusions and forecasting. AI is a data-driven technology that is applicable in diverse industries. The influential trajectories of AI include neural networks, robotics, and symbolic systems. AI adoption is high in sectors that are strong digital adapters such as telecom, automotive and financial sectors, and low in sectors such as education, healthcare, and tourism while remains modest on retail and media companies. The discourse on the potential implication of Artificial intelligence (AI) remains equivocal. One strand of discourse arguing that leveraging AI will lead to the downfall of humankind by surpassing human intelligence which remains the most powerful known biological technology while another strand of discourse posits that AI would generate a positive transformation...…of AI compounds the challenge. A fundamental criticism against AI is ethical issues. AI- enabled vulnerabilities such as information manipulation could potentially trigger AI-influenced cyber conflicts. AI would revolutionize cyber-attack by enhancing g precision and speed which maximizes on disruption. Currently, there exist no computer control systems that would directly pause harm to humans but with the increasing assimilation of the internet of things (IOT) and automation, such systems are inevitable and would create a global catastrophe. Distinctive catastrophic scenarios such as an erroneous military command of massive attack AI robots, computerized autopilot planes crashing on nuclear plants, hacking automated factories to produce toxic chemicals, large scale infrastructure failure, manipulation of human behaviors through computer virus among present plausible danger of AI. Turchin & Denkenberger identifies the online suicide challenge “Blue Whale” that leftover 130 Russian children dead as a catastrophic scenario demonstrating the evident cybersecurity risk of interconnectivity powered by AI technologies.

Indisputably, the future will be based on autonomous systems – machines powered by AI as the world navigates the fourth industrial revolution. Therefore, it’s imperative to formulate global AI polices that ensure that research and development on AI technologies focuses on the optimization of social good.

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