In these days and age, as AI or artificial intelligence advances, ethical considerations serve as a pivotal in ensuring responsible development and deployment. While AI promises innovation and efficiency, it also contains hidden dangers that require our attention. In this blog, we explore the hidden dangers that could compromise our social fabric, including issues related to privacy, automated decision-making as well as the distribution of labor resources and economic inequality.
🔍 Privacy Erosion
In the age of AI, privacy concerns are becoming increasingly complex due to widespread data collection by companies and governments. Big Tech companies, like Google and Meta, wield enormous influence, using vast amounts of data to shape the economy, politics, and society. The nature of AI collecting large amounts of information and data to make decisions can lead to information leakage and vulnerability for each individual. That's why strong security measures, ethical design, and transparency are essential for organizations using AI.
👾 Autonomous Decision-Making
AI has become an indispensable part of our lives, improving efficiency in many different fields. From facial recognition to self-driving cars and automated financial transactions, AI is involved in making smart decisions based on big data. However, this causes problems related to responsibility and accountability for errors or huge consequences that AI causes in important decisions such as the use of AI in the realm of autonomous weapons. Therefore, countries such as the US and Europe or China always emphasize the importance of controlling, researching and preventing potential risks of AI.
👷 Job Displacement and Economic Inequality
The current AI boom is gradually changing the employment landscape and has several impacts on the economy, especially negatively affecting low-skilled workers. AI is replacing mental labor, leading to the current division of labor. The first root cause comes from the speed of replacement and development of AI much faster than the speed of skill development of low-skilled workers. At the same time, as AI spreads, the demand for skilled labor increases, causing employment polarization and income inequality. That's because while high-skilled workers may not be directly replaced by AI, their tasks can indirectly affect low-skilled workers leading to labor isolation. low- and medium-skilled workers or even become barriers to entry for them into the formal economy.
In conclusion, although it always brings unexpected effects, AI always carries potential ethical dangers in terms of privacy, inequality and automated technology. By promoting transparency, strengthening privacy protections, and promoting responsible governance, we can explore the power of AI for the greater benefits while minimizing ethical risks.
Reference:
Dr. Mark van Rijmenam. (2023, April 7). Privacy in the age of AI: Risks, challenges and solutions. Dr Mark van Rijmenam, CSP | Strategic Futurist Speaker. https://www.thedigitalspeaker.com/privacy-age-ai-risks-challenges-solutions/.
Hongjun Guan, Liye Dong, & Aiwu Zhao. (2022, September 12). Ethical risk factors and mechanisms in artificial intelligence decision making. PubMed Central (PMC). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9495402/.
Chen, S., Xie, W., Jin, Y., Wang, J., Ma, X., Zhou, E., … & Deng, P. (2023). labor ethics study on the employment substitution effect of ai - based on the perspective of changes in logistics work. https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-3091042/v1.