What are the pros and cons of AI, and how it will affect the current economy and the future? By Grayson W and Henry M-P  

Have you ever wondered what the future of AI is going to look like and the pros and cons of AI, if so, read further into this article and find out our views on AI.

What is AI?

 Artificial intelligence is the science of making machines that can think like humans. It can do things that are considered “smart.” AI technology can process large amounts of data in ways, unlike humans. The goal for AI is to be able to do things such as recognize patterns, make decisions, and judge like humans. AI is improving daily and gaining strength every second.

PROS

AI could be our future in multiple different ways, it could affect us positively or negatively depending on how you use it. There are a number of positives and advantages to AI. 

Healthcare is a notable factor, AI can help with personalized treatment plans and drug discoveries, which could cure diseases. This could improve patient healthcare and make hospital experiences better.

Another Factor that AI could improve the future is education. AI can provide different types of learning, help with marking, so teachers have less stress, can create learning and lesson plans and other tasks that teachers may not have the compacity to do, this will massively change the education of young pupils.

Automation and productivity are also a massive pro that falls into the positive attributes of AI. AI can help automate repetitive tasks, increasing productivity helping humans focus on more productive and important tasks. This could help with economic growth and could create more job opportunities, which is currently needed.

AI is also very clever at monitoring and managing environmental changes, optimising resource use, and developing sustainable technologies. Climate change is a growing problem and AI may just be the solution to stop this, taking in account all the factors we have just stated, climate change could be stopped which has never been seen before.

CONS

Although there are positive attributes to AI, there are also many negatives which people need to be aware of. Job losses is a significant con to AI, due to the AI being able to take over these jobs and do them to a better level than humans.

Another notable drawback of AI is humans possibly becoming lazy and primarily rely on AI to do their everyday tasks and quite literally take over. If this gets to a significant point then this could be a substantial take over, and humans would never take back control, or be the same.

Another scary factor that the community needs to account for is the use of AI for things such as deep faking,     cyber-attacks, and hacking, these can all be done by anyone in the click of a button which is terrifying to think about, this could change people’s lives detrimentally.

INTERVIEW

We have interviewed Miss Thomas (Geography teacher at The Beacon) on the topic of AI, and she has stated that she uses AI in various ways to assist her in her job. She said that she has two opinions on AI, on one hand she said that it is very useful as a teacher to help plan her lessons and make things less stressful in general. However, on the other hand she said that it could possibly be very dangerous due to the images that can be created of celebrities and is dangerous for pupils using it in the wrong way. She said that it can massively spread fake news very quickly.

She said that school in the future must take on board and account for the massively growing power of AI, teachers need to let it be used to a certain extent. Miss Thomas said, “We will have to adapt to it in our everyday life”.

We asked Miss Thomas if people use AI more positively or negatively and she stated that it depends on the person. For example, some people may use it for practical and useful reasons, although some may use it in the complete opposite way which could be detrimental.

Finally, we asked if AI should be used by pupils at school. She said yes if you use it as a prompt for work, but not for complete copying. Although Miss Thomas asked Chat GPT A level Geography questions and it got them completely wrong, this is where students need to be careful.

Overall, AI is expected to improve industries such as healthcare, manufacturing, customer services, education and many more, which could lead to higher quality experiences for workers, customers, pupils, and the economy. However, as we have stated there are still problems and draw backs that can come with AI, and that citizens need to look out for.