I am neither an astrologer nor I came from the future but somehow I am sure about one thing, Artificial Intelligence isn’t going to help that many people if you think with a wider view. With Artificial intelligence there is a question that how is it going to affect overselves on a personal level? Also what effect it’s going to have on the workplace? And why the Indian workers are going to be worse off with the introduction of Artificial Intelligence in the workplace there?. I think that it’s going to affect us a lot because it’s easy and accessible anytime so it is going to put our state of mind into risk. It is going to take away a lot of jobs at a professional level because it’s cheaper and faster. Also I think underprivileged people are going to find it hard to maintain their livelihood in the Artificial Intelligence era. Moreover, the jobs that are repetitive are most likely to be replaced. Indian workers will find it hard to maintain their livelihood as they already face several problems preventing them from earning their bread.
To begin with, according to the Britannica “Artificial intelligence (AI), the ability of a digital computer or computer-controlled robot to perform tasks commonly associated with intelligent beings. The term is frequently applied to the project of developing systems endowed with the intellectual processes characteristic of humans, such as the ability to reason, discover meaning, generalize, or learn from past experience.” This means Artificial Intelligence being highly equipped or programmed computers that are designed to carry out human tasks. Artificial Intelligence was first born in 1956 when a group of scientists coined the term at a workshop at Dartmouth college. Since then, it went through all the highs and lows and as a result it has become a major tool now. With Artificial Intelligence the first concern that arises is how it is going to affect ourselves and our skills.
Firstly, nowadays we see artificial intelligence as a tool we can use to lessen our work and something that is really helpful to some extent whether it be summarizing long essays or helping finding information in an instant. It is from activities that something that seems now to be an option can turn into a requirement or something that we cannot live without. That overuse can lead to a major loss of our human skills like creativity. Alok Gupta from University of Minnesota and Andreas Fügener, Jörn Grahl, and Wolfgang Ketter from University of Cologne in Germany in “Human Borgs: How Artificial Intelligence Can Kill Creativity And Make Us Dumber”
performed research, published in late 2021, that covered the risks and consequences of over reliance on AI in business and creative decisions. They found out that it can decrease the collective intelligence of the people and can make people less productive as they rely more on Artificial Intelligence. Such is the case with people who rely for news on social media platforms as they lose their diversity of thought as they only take information from there.
Secondly, Artificial intelligence has another flaw that can lead to misinformation. We try to get information from wherever we can get and thus it can be harmful as sometimes the information is manipulated and made in the sense to just get people’s attention. In “ The Science Times” article, the researchers from the University of Maryland, Baltimore performed an experiment to check if fake news generated by Artificial Intelligence could even fool experts from high educational backgrounds. They created fake news on topics of Cybersecurity and Covid-19 and gave it to the experts to test them. They found out that the news fooled the experts and thus proved that even if we think that information appears to be reliable, it can’t be possibly trusted.
Thirdly, another issue with Artificial intelligence is that it can put our security and privacy at risk. In the article “How AI Is Affecting Information Privacy and Data”, the author argues that these websites we search online are powered by Artificial intelligence nowadays and thus often collect our data and could sell to companies so they could use it for customer engagement. Also, it can lead to us getting attacked by cybercriminals as there isn’t much protection online and thus those cybercriminals can exploit our data and use that to do stuff like Fraud or blackmailing. Thus we should limit the information we choose to provide online and just use the internet when it is necessary only.
The Next question that arises from the use of Artificial intelligence is how it is going to impact the workplace. We think of Artificial Intelligence as human friendly and I am sure that those who invented it, had the motive to help the humans and the artificial intelligence would assist them. But this scenario seems to be changing now as Artificial intelligence has started taking over jobs that humans dominated. With the introduction of OpenAI ChatGPT, many people have already lost their jobs. In the Washington Post article “, “ChatGPT took their jobs. Now they walk dogs and fix air conditioners (2023)” the author exemplifies how Erik Fein who owned a content-writing company lost his clients to ChatGPT because it was cheaper and faster. This is just the beginning as more companies have started to rely on Artificial intelligence.
Artificial Intelligence is not only going to take over jobs but also going to lower wages. Artificial intelligence is programmed in such a way to perform tasks in a shorter span of time and can be cost effective whereas humans take time to do things and make or do them as good as possible. Thus, humans in order to compete with artificial intelligence for some specific tasks will have to cut down their wages if they want to maintain their livelihood. In the article “Frey likened ChatGPT ‘s AI revolution to Uber disrupting the taxi market. He said the arrival of Uber and the like resulted in more taxis on the streets. But it also led to more competition, thus effecting a wage cut of around ten percent for drivers.” (Android Headlines, 2023). This comparison demonstrates that when there is competition, one needs to reduce their prices to keep themselves in the market.
Artificial intelligence will not have the same effect on exactly everyone as it will benfit some people too. Artificial Intelligence is also going to create more jobs. The Forbes article “How Does Artificial Intelligence Create New Jobs?”, illustrates how Artificial Intelligence will create new jobs like Health data analyst and Agrotechnologists who combine traditional and technological aspects. But the most use of the Artificial Intelligence can only be done by those who got the tricks to how this technology. Unless people learn the skills to work alongside Artificial Intelligence, it is just a lose or lose game.
Another question is why Indian workers are going to be worse off with the introduction of Artificial Intelligence into the workforce. India is a country where the service sector constitutes more than 50% of the GDP (“Gross domestic product (GDP) is the total monetary or market value of all the finished goods and services produced within a country’s borders in a specific time period.” Investopedia ) contribution. The article “INVESTIGATING THE NEXUS BETWEEN ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND MACHINE LEARNING TECHNOLOGIES IN THE CASE OF INDIAN SERVICES INDUSTRY.” divides the intelligence into four levels and discusses which levels are most prone to be replaced by Artificial Intelligence. The four levels are- Physical Intelligence, Logical-based Intelligence, Natural intelligence and compassion. It concludes that out of the four levels, Artificial intelligence is going to replace jobs involving the first three levels. The jobs it’s going to replace are:
- Physical Intelligence: Factory laborers that do routine tasks.
- Logical-based Intelligence: Accountant, Financial Analyst that rely on problem solving ability and logical reasoning.
- Natural Intelligence: Managers, consultants that require adapting to different situations.
Next, the Indian workers are going to be impacted more by Artificial Intelligence due to overpopulation as there is already fierce competition for jobs in India. India is on its way to overtake China to become the most populated country in the world. With it, arises the problem of providing employment to people so they can maintain their livelihood. In the news article “India population: The job crisis driving millions to big cities” there were policeman jobs opened in Mumbai. Competition was fierce as there were 650,000 applicants and only 8,000 positions.
Finally, another problem that enhances the harm brought by Artificial intelligence is the Indian government’s inability to provide people with educational or working skills and opportunities. In the National Herald new article “Three years of Modi govt: A list of broken, failed promises” the government failed miserably to create more jobs as compared to the years before their rule. During the previous two years, the number of jobs that were created was near about twelve hundred thousand but between 2014 and 1016 the number of new jobs created was only near six hundred thousand. Moreover, the government that is currently ruling India has been in power since 2014.The year before during 2013-14, the total expenditure on education was 4.67%. But with this party coming into power, they planned on spending only 3.71% of their total expenditure on education during 2017-18. This trend has been constant till now.
Conclusion:
In Conclusion, Artificial Intelligence is going to have a bad effect on the people as a whole both on the personal and professional level. The reliance on Artificial intelligence is going to make people lazier and vulnerable. It is going to provide them new job opportunities but it’s going to take a lot more jobs than it’s going to create. And, the poor or low wage workers are going to have to face a lot of difficulties in maintaining their livelihood in the era of Artificial Intelligence. India is going to be one of the countries where this new trend is going to harm the workforce the most.
This knowledge about Artificial Intelligence is a must for people so they can prepare themselves for the changes that are coming and thus start developing new skills so as it becomes difficult for Artificial Intelligence to replace them. The people need to come together and should make the government put some kind of restrictions on how much the people can rely on Artificial Intelligence and some jobs should be reserved for only humans.
Work Citation:
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Bustos, Mark. “AI and Misinformation: How Artificial Intelligence Works on Both Sides.” Science Times, 10 June 2021, www.sciencetimes.com/articles/31648/20210610/ai-misinformation-artificial-intelligence-works-both-sides.htm.
“How AI Is Affecting Information Privacy and Data.” Western Governors University, www.wgu.edu/blog/how-ai-affecting-information-privacy-data2109.html#openSubscriberModal.
Verma, Pranshu, and Gerrit De Vynck. “ChatGPT Took Their Jobs. Now They Walk Dogs and Fix Air Conditioners.” Washington Post, 2 June 2023, www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2023/06/02/ai-taking-jobs/.
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Dhairya Maheshwari, and Dhairya Maheshwari. “Three Years of Modi Govt: A List of Broken, Failed Promises.” National Herald, 26 May 2017, www.nationalheraldindia.com/national/three-years-of-narendra-modi-government-a-list-of-broken-and-failed-promises.
