Decoding AI: Pros VS Cons

Introduction

In today’s world, our eyes remain glued to the screens; whether it be for recreation or for our jobs. Artificial Intelligence, or abbreviated to “AI”, has put a significant impact on the things we interact with everyday, mainly being technology. By 2023, AI itself had built a technological industry worth $142.3 billion (Statista, 2023). AI has essentially rewritten many aspects of our lives, from healthcare to finance, redefining several industries and enhancing technology.

However, these advances created by AI have been reasonably questioned by many regarding its potential change on society, economy, politics, and much more. Therefore, it becomes increasingly important to understand the truth of AI by considering its remarkable pros and ugly disadvantages.

The following blog will attempt to display the vivid benefits and impacts of AI in this world and the cons of this multi-million dollar industry. 

What is AI?

Before we go over the pros and cons of AI, we should know a bit about what it is before we make an opinion regarding it. Artificial Intelligence refers to the development of technological systems able to do tasks that usually require human skills and intelligence. After much development, forms of AI include self-driving cars, virtual assistants, and a lot more. 

Why are the Pros and Cons important?

EmpowerHer’s main goal is to not only help women pave their paths in careers like business, medicine, and AI but also to help them find what they don’t necessarily thrive in or enjoy. If you are looking to find a job relating to AI, you should look at the pros and cons so you can get a glimpse of what to expect in the job. It may even change your choice in career. You could be interested in medicine, but look through the pros and cons and decide that AI would suit you more. But for a more practical and detailed approach to careers like finance, AI, and medicine, be sure to attend EmpowerHer’s events to experience live workshops and hands-on-activities. Overall, looking at the pros and cons of something you are interested in can change your perspective on the subject and possibly change your career choice. 

Benefits of AI & The job Itself

AI is a broad subject, meaning there are also several jobs using it. From healthcare to environmental conservation. Nearly every single job in this generation uses a form of AI. Let’s go over a short list of the main pros of AI and jobs relating to it!

1. Efficiency & Accuracy: AI can automate repetitive tasks in seconds, allowing humans to not only save time but also get a more efficient answer. Leading me to my next point, Accuracy. AI technology can perform pretty complex calculations and answer perplexing questions with a high degree of accuracy. This can possibly leave our next generations in good hands, capable of wasting much less time compared to us when decision-making and figuring things out. 

1. Cost Saving & Personalization: Since AI is efficient and can automate human tasks, AI can easily help homeowners, businesses, educational institutes, and other organizations or technologies with income and cost saving. An example is that businesses can increase profitability while reducing operational costs.

1. Increased Safety: AI can help us monitor critical systems like medical systems, transportation, and the military (to name a few). Because AI can monitor these systems, it can also proactively heal any safety issues without human intervention. An example could be when someone is hacking a safety system, AI could quickly detect this and take steps to protect the system and potentially prevent this from happening in the future.

Pros of Jobs Relating to AI

This field will grow in the future as companies are investing in platforms like ChatGPT and Meta AI. There could possibly be a huge demand for these jobs in the future

Cons of AI & Jobs Relating to it

Although AI may be accurate at times, over 60% of Americans who use AI question it and decide whether to trust it or not. Also, about 6% of AI’s calculations end up with the wrong answer. Although this is a low percentage, we can’t necessarily depend on AI fully (for now!) Below, find few of the many cons of AI!

 Software Bugs:

Although AI is trusted, software bugs can and will occur frequently. You could want to perform the simplest procedure but still go through bugs. If you are using AI for a critical decision and a software bug occurs, there can be devastating effects.

Take over the world & Misuses:

This is a frequent topic— but could AI take over the world? The answer could be yes. Now that AI is basically accessible to all, it could be misused by the wrong people. They could take over the important or all of the systems in the world with the help of AI and technically do whatever they’d like. Other than taking over the world, people can use AI to do things against others, spread fake news, and more.

Take over Jobs:

You may hear your parents or colleagues talking about different companies like Facebook or Google laying-off thousands of employees. One of the reasons for this is AI. It’s not only electronic/online companies; It is even jobs in education. AI can easily create multiple robot teachers, removing jobs of teachers. See, companies are starting to realize that they don’t need people working for a certain position because AI can be just as smart as any human and can perform the same tasks of the role, maybe even better than humans. All these people getting unemployed are adding up to millions due to a single technology network; Artificial Intelligence.

Overview

So, there are many positive and negative impacts of AI on people currently and in the future. We can’t either control or anticipate where we will lead AI (or where AI could lead us). The only thing we can do is wait.

Even if you're confused about AI or your career— don’t worry! Attend EmpowerHer’s workshops including hands-on-activities, events, and more to learn more about careers and help other women pursue their careers as well.