Artificial Friend or Virtual Foe
Is AI making more good than harm?
I. Is AI doing any good at all?
Researchers, entrepreneurs, and policy-makers are increasingly using AI to tackle development challenges. In other words, using AI for a greater good is a real thing.
Several studies and prototypes have been run to prove the value of AI in high-impact fields such as healthcare (Chunara et al., 2012; Caicedo-Torres et al., 2016; Pathak and Kumar 2016; Robertson and DeHart 2010; Waidyanatha et al., 2013) or environmental issues (Tehrany et al., 2014; Ferris, 2010; Tien Bui et al., 2012; Kapoor et al., 2010). However, it is becoming clear that AI poses as many threats as benefits, although the former ones are usually neglected.
I do not want to get into trust, accountability, or safety issues in this short piece (if you want, here there is more), but avoiding the negative effects of AI is why incorporating a set of ethical principles into our technology development process is so paramount. Ethics plays a key role by ensuring that regulations of AI harness its…
