TUM Muhammad Sabeeh

The role of AI in future technology

A drastic change has occurred, over the past decade, in the application of AI in our day to day
life. Artificial intelligence, which refers to a machine’s ability to imitate human intelligence and
acquire knowledge from surroundings, is now rather real than fictional. Recent developments in
this field such as IBM’s Watson and Tesla’s self-driving smart cars further cement this
argument. In this essay, the author will analyze how AI is going to take center stage in future
technological developments using examples from present and past.

Ever since its birth, AI has managed to evolve across variety of domains. It is not long before AI
will be part of every minute in our life. The potential of AI is endless. It can be seen through the
latest change in automobile industry which suggests it is only a matter of time before we see
driverless cars all around us as autonomous vehicles from Google have travelled almost 700,000
accident-free miles (Urmson, 2014). Successful experiments of autonomous vehicles have led
the car designers to reconsider their future plans and patterns to establish AI as the core of their
vehicle designs. This is evident by a recent joint-venture by Mercedes-Benz, a leader in
automobile industry, and Nvidia, a pioneer in computing technology (Csongor, 2017). Cars, as
can be seen by recent developments, will be computers moving on wheels. Gartner forecasts a
market of 250 million connected cars on the road by 2020. In addition, cars will also come the
under the roof of cloud technology, where the sensors and other parts could receive system
updates for a good time rather than getting isolated.

Technology has always been a core component of professional sports. It is another major
industry determined to base AI as its technological center point. Sports, A major industry
currently generating billions of dollars in the United States alone, as suggested by PWC in its
2016 sports outlook publication, is investing a huge chunk of its revenue on AI. Already
established usage of sports bot, automated journalism and wearable tech is a blueprint of impact
AI can have on the future of sports technology. This is leading us to an era where robots will be
used as coaches to make decisions, using videos of games and deep learning will train them, at
first place, to make decisions. (Fern, 2016). Another impact of future technology is apparent by
automated video highlights. A system that uses data from fans and players to pick key players
and compile them to create highlights. Research work is already underway by IBM on this, and
looks well set to become the future of the way highlights are generated all over the sports. A
benchmark for the future has already been set by using it in the last Wimbledon tournament.

Another aspect of technology that has taken a major step towards setting AI as its base for future
is health care. Technology has always been the fundamental core in progression of medical care.
AI is expected to take this to a whole new level as is evident by recent findings in the area.
The Walter Reed National Military Medical Center has already begun implementing AI

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technology to their benefit by using it to construct drawings of decision support tools for surgical
care. (Felten, 2016). AI will also help improve medical diagnosis, prevention of disease and care
for it. In addition, the mega change that is to occur in future is use of artificial human body parts
such as limbs and arms. AI works on acquiring and sending information to its central system, this
is exactly what will lead to artificial body parts that will be movable using our brain. With the
help of big data, machine learning will also help find roots of death threats such as cancer
through mining vast medical records. Also, it is poised to take the main role in drug discovery
and creation. From coding to cancer, with AI cure for all is inevitable.

Moving on from healthcare, another industry involved in vast research is smart phones. Smart
phones are one prominent example of AI application that impacts our daily life currently. The
use of Siri and Google Now in IOS and Android respectively is nothing but our mere adaptation
to the future. Due to constant research and development, the days are not far off before the gap
between these aforementioned digital assistants and real-life personal assistants is bridged.
Currently the trend is at what Wan Biao, Huawei’s chief operating officer, described as “know
me”. (Boxal, 2017). Smart phones are trying to learn human traits and how they manipulate the
use of a smart phone. The upcoming trend is set to be “be me”.. Smart phones, with the
integration of AI, are leading to a smart society. A society where every useful information is
shared to the cloud, and necessary results or patterns ,such as an event going on near you, or let
us say a tragic incident has occurred, will be informed to the other users. Additionally, when a
smart phone has reached the “be me” phase, it will also eliminate the need of swiping through
your home screen to look for your favorite app. The phone will also be able to understand your
mood, how to handle it and what to suggest you in case it recognizes an unhealthy habit
developing. To a doctor’s relief, this will assist in precaution and care for a patient.

Research and development in technology has made life easier for us but it would not be wrong to
say that it has brought risks of its own. Artificial intelligence, despite all its glories, has often
come under scrutiny. One of the main threats posed by it is over learning. This is explained by
experts as a predicted stage where machine learning will outgrow the human brain and become
too smart for us to control it. On the other hand, there have been suggestions to regulate the use
of AI to avoid or mitigate such risks that could have negative impact on future technology.

Concluding the impact of AI on future technology, it will be fair to say that it is set to take center
stage in technology and become a whole domain of its own. Various industries, ranging from
business to sports, have already embraced AI as their future companion and we are destined to
head into a world where it will be difficult to differentiate interaction with a human and a
machine. AI, with all it benefits, also causes threats to our society in the future although there
could be moderate steps taken to control it.

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Bibliography
Boxal, A., 2017. Digital Trends. [Online] Available at:
https://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/huawei-sees-artificial-intelligence/ [Accessed 29
september 2017].

Csongor, R., 2017. Nvidia.com. [Online] Available at:

https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2017/01/06/mercedes-benz-nvidia-ai-car/ [Accessed 12 September
2017].

Felten, E., 2016. How to prepare for the future of Artificial Intelligence. [Online] Available at:
https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/blog/2016/06/27/how-prepare-future-artificial-intelligence
[Accessed 26 september 2017].

Fern, A., 2016. Nvidia. [Online].

Urmson, C., 2014. The latest chapter of self driving car. [Online] Available at:
https://googleblog.blogspot.co.uk/2014/04/the-latest-chapter-for-self-driving-car.html [Accessed
12 September 2017].