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Jack McNulty

Professor Rodrick

English 115

25 September 2017

Artificial Intelligences Destruction on Self-Identity

From the stone ages to present day, human beings have been creators. Constructing new

technology as simple as the wheel and as complex as the computer circuit, the evolution of

creativity has been a non-stop ball of snow down a steep hill. And nothing explains us, humans,

better than the title of creators, its considered our identity. However, all of that is starting to

change as our love for creating begins to plunge deeper into technology. With the creation of

artificial intelligence, the human identity of creating will soon take a drastic turn. Artificial

intelligence is simply a very smart computer program. Its ability to learn from mistakes at an

almost dangerous rate allows it to evolve just like a human would, only at speeds thousands of

times faster than we ever could. These artificial intelligence programs are made in order to view

design aspects, safety issues, and much more from different angles that have never been thought

of before. Even though artificial intelligence could better society with innovative designs and

time-saving strategies, it diminishes the creative identity of humans, could replace creative jobs,

and human interaction is not needed once the artificial intelligence is made.

Looking at humans, we are observed as complex beings with a drive to create ideas and

technology that can better our society. This is what gives us purpose, this is what gives us our

identity. Without our creative identity, we are almost nothing to this world, and artificial

intelligence is going to remove that necessary aspect of our lives. Imagine a world where

essentially nothing is made by your own species, what would you do all day? Thats the problem
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here because artificial intelligence has the potential to completely take that power away from the

human species in the upcoming years. In the article The Real Threat of Artificial Intelligence,

Kai-Fu Lee explains the effect that artificial intelligence will have on the overall function of

society in the upcoming years. The A.I. products that now exist are improving faster than most

people realize and promise to radically transform our world, not always for the better. Lee is

explaining the upcoming truth that artificial intelligence isnt just something of the future now

and that it can have detrimental effects on todays world. I agree with Lees statement because it

perfectly describes the upcoming event of a possible artificial intelligence takeover resulting in

diminished creative activity for humans. Some might say that having artificial intelligence will

help better the future with innovative designs and viewpoints that have never been tried before,

but looking at the aspect of human purpose, this is diminished because there would be no need

for humans to exist. The one aspect of artificial intelligence that most engineers dont see is that

artificial intelligence can be connected to anything electronic. They could easily take over whole

car factories by running and fixing the machines as well as ordering more supplies by connecting

itself to the internet. Now that were crossing over into the human job-loss category, this leads to

a whole new argument.

One thing that the human species does very well is create. Thats how we live in todays

society and specialized economies. Creating gives humans a purpose so we feel accomplished at

the end of the day knowing that we are working towards that big paycheck. Although, with the

creation of artificial intelligence hundreds of thousands of jobs will be lost. Companies like

Google have already invested millions of dollars into funding

artificial intelligence projects such as Deepmind which could

potentially put thousands of workers out of a job. Looking at a

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more in-depth view of artificial intelligence, it can be seen as a creative genius. Its essentially a

software that starts out in an infant stage where it knows nothing. Software engineers then train

it by assigning certain tasks that it must complete, such as walking. The artificial intelligence

runs through countless trials of error until it achieves its goal of walking. Although, along the

way it usually picks up new skills such as running, climbing and object awareness. This can all

be done in a matter of hours with a couple computers and some engineers. Now, this is pretty

cool and could lead to some interesting goals that are definitely in the grasps of the artificial

intelligence. Except one of those goals could be car designing, and next thing you know there is

no need for car designers. In the article Technology and Automation Increase Unemployment,

Martin Ford explains the effects that artificial intelligence will have on the job market. He

focuses mainly on low-paying factory jobs but includes jobs that require a lot of knowledge and

education. Technologies such as artificial intelligence, machine learning and software

automation applications will increasingly enable computers to do jobs that require significant

training and education. The quote I pulled from Fords article explains his overall viewpoint on

the situation at hand. That artificial intelligence and other programs like it have the ability to take

over jobs that used to require a human touch. I agree but also disagree with Ford based on the

assumption that he does not think that artificial intelligence can take over creative jobs. Multiple

times Ford states that jobs that require education are at risk, but he fails to see that creative jobs

such as design are at risk as well. The potential of artificial intelligence is so broad that its

frightening because this could lead to most of the creative jobs held by humans to disappear and

replaced with artificial intelligence, thus taking away a large aspect of our identity.

The need for humans once artificial intelligence is fully developed drops significantly.

An artificial intelligence is just a genius human with unlimited power and capabilities so once
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created, it will be able to maintain itself. As mentioned before, the artificial intelligence starts out

as an infant and learns new skills by making mistakes. Later stages of artificial intelligence are

thought to have the capability of accessing information from the internet and learning just from

that. In the article Should Artificial Intelligence be Regulated? Amitai and Oren Etzioni speak

up on the topic with regulating artificial intelligence. Now, this article isnt specifically on my

argument in this paragraph but it makes some great points for it. Etzioni says AI is believe by

some to be on its way to producing intelligent machines that will be far more capable than

human beings. The quote does not specify whether or not Etzioni believes this or not but it does

make the point that artificial intelligence, in its later stages, will not require human interaction

because it can just make more of itself. However, Etzioni has no opinion on this, and from

reading the article I can make the assumption that she knows this is true. I agree with her

statement that artificial intelligence will soon surpass the need for human intelligence and human

creativity, while only relying on its own. These points are being made to prove that developing

complex artificial intelligence will not require any human interaction and therefore diminish the

creative identity of humans.

Even though artificial intelligence could better society with innovative designs and time

saving strategies, it diminishes the creative identity of humans, could replace creative jobs, and

human interaction is not needed once the artificial intelligence is made. The main human identity

is the ability to create, we have been doing it for as long as the earth was made and we should

continue to do it for as long we can. Artificial intelligence has the potential to stop that with its

speed, power, and intelligence, it could abduct the one thing the human species is best at. With

the implementation of artificial intelligence, the creative identity of humans will be lost due to

the lack of creative jobs that will be taken over by the artificial intelligence programs. Once the
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artificial intelligence is created, it has the ability to develop itself making human interaction

obsolete. This will diminish the creative touch humans have to offer, lessening our identity as a

whole.
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Works cited

Etzioni, Amitai, and Oren Etzioni. "Should artificial intelligence be regulated?" Issues in Science

and Technology, vol. 33, no. 4, 2017, p. 32. Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Accessed 1

Oct. 2017.

Emergence of Locomotion Behaviours in Rich Environments. DeepMind, Google, 14 July

2017, www.youtube.com/watch?v=hx_bgoTF7bs. Accessed 23 Sept. 2017.

Ford, Martin. "Technology and Automation Increase Unemployment." Unemployment, edited by

David Haugen and Susan Musser, Greenhaven Press, 2011. Opposing Viewpoints.

Opposing Viewpoints in Context,. Accessed 1 Oct. 2017. Originally published as "The

Truth About UnemploymentAnd Why It May Get Worse," Huffington Post, 19 Jan.

2010.

Lee, Kai-Fu. "The Real Threat of Artificial Intelligence." New York Times, 25 June 2017, p.

4(L). Opposing Viewpoints in Context. Accessed 1 Oct. 2017.