Artificial intelligence is able to process large amounts of data quickly, making it an excellent tool for analysing and predicting outcomes. This is particularly helpful for industries like banking, healthcare and insurance where data is abundant.
However, AI can be prone to biases due to its use of historical data. It also lacks creativity and emotion, which can make it difficult to find innovative solutions.
Pros
AI is a tool that helps businesses automate manual tasks that free up humans to focus on more important and complex work. This saves time and money by increasing productivity.
It also allows for quicker decision-making and provides a wealth of data that can be used to make better, more informed decisions. It does this by analyzing all available information and using that to provide insights to help make the right decisions faster.
Unlike humans, AI is purely logical and follows preset parameters that leave little room for nuance or emotion in its decisions. This can lead to mistakes and biased outcomes, especially if an algorithm is trained on unbalanced or incomplete data. However, it’s not infallible and can be hacked to create fake information, or “deepfakes,” that look authentic but are actually fraudulent.
The biggest pro of artificial intelligence is its ability to work continuously and consistently without fatigue, whereas humans need to take breaks from repetitive and mundane tasks. It can also perform complex and critical tasks that would be impossible for human workers to do without compromising quality or safety. It’s also much cheaper than human labor and will continue to become more affordable over time. It’s also easy to implement, as most major cloud providers offer branded AIaaS offerings to streamline data prep, model development and application deployment.
Cons
AI is highly beneficial in making sense of the massive data sets these days by quickly acquiring and extracting the information, as well as further processing it through interpretation and transformation. However, with that said, it’s important to recognize that the data used by an AI program could be biased and lead to unintended results. This is why quality checks are essential, especially in the case of AI programs that may be used to make decisions with significant consequences. AI Is More Fun Now, But Not For Everyone.
Another concern with the use of AI is that it can potentially replace jobs and increase unemployment. Repetitive tasks such as data entry, email responses, customer support through chatbots and factory operations like visual quality inspection or software testing can all be performed by AI programs, freeing up employees to work on other tasks that require distinctively human abilities.
While the use of AI will save time and energy for many employees, it does present the risk that some positions will be phased out entirely, resulting in job loss. One issue is that AI cannot think creatively. While it can perform tasks such as writing Forbes earning reports, they are limited to the data and facts given to them. As such, AI cannot create novel or unexpected ideas, which is where humans excel.
Advantages
AI helps businesses optimize internal processes and save time, which frees up the workforce for other tasks. It can also make unbiased decisions and take action much faster than humans. It can also perform jobs that are risky or dangerous for humans, such as a robot performing radiosurgery on tumors.
Unlike traditional programming, which uses explicit rules for every scenario, AI programs learn from data and adapt independently. This makes it better suited for unstructured information, such as images or natural language text. This is especially useful for businesses that generate large amounts of data.
The downside is that AI systems rely on the past to predict the future, so they’re not always accurate. For example, they may fail to account for new variables like unanticipated social or economic circumstances.
Another drawback of AI is the potential for bias and discrimination. This can happen if the data used to train an algorithm is biased. Additionally, if an AI system is not designed with privacy in mind, it could collect and use personal information without the consent of users. This raises privacy concerns that are important to address. It can also lead to unemployment if it replaces jobs that require human intervention. It can also be susceptible to cyber attacks if not built with security in mind.