Types of AI and its Impacts

By Lucinda Peng

Recently, AI has taken the world by storm, making the present feel like the future. This is the result of various newly publicized AI technologies such as GPT-4, Dalle2, Eliza (the Chatbot Therapist),  Deepfakes, and much more.

There are three levels of AI in order to differentiate the degree in which AI can do tasks: narrow AI which is limited to specific tasks (what we’ve reached today), general AI which can think and function just like humans, and artificial super intelligence which exceeds human cognition by a great extent in every possible way.

Examples of narrow AI include recommended tags on social media and other algorithms for personalization on social media, spam filtering, thermostats, google maps, and self driving cars. The conglomeration of various AI technologies or expert systems could pave the way for the future AI. It is similar to how human intelligence is composed of various senses, logical, creative, and other cognitive functions. 

On the other hand, general AI can think and function as humans. This includes skills such as language and vision processing, cognitive skills such as thinking contextual understanding, and a more generalized approach to emulate human thinking. General AI is still far off, since we lack the required tools such as advanced neural networks and the ability to decode and develop consciousness. Superintelligent AI can recursively self-improve by using the cognitive capabilities of humans, creating an intelligence explosion and reaching genius-level intelligence.

Experts predicted networked artificial intelligence (general AI and superintelligent AI) will amplify human effectiveness but also threaten human autonomy, agency, and capabilities. In the short term, computers might match and exceed human intelligence and capabilities on tasks such as reasoning and learning, complex decision making, reasoning and learning, sophisticated analytics and pattern recognition, visual acuity, speech recognition, and language translation. This would open the real possibility for AI to take over a large part of the workforce. Regardless of the presence or lack of optimism towards humanity’s future, most experts expressed concerns about the long-term impacts of AI on topics like human agency, data abuse, dependence lock in, and mayhem through warfare. 

From a long-term perspective, AI could serve as a tertiary cognitive layer in addition to the cortex and limbic system, leading to superhuman cognition. However, this could be dangerous without regulation, especially if the goals of superintelligent AI diverge with those of humanity or worse, decide that there’s no need for the existence of humanity. 

Works Cited

Talty, Stephan. “What Will Our Society Look like When Artificial Intelligence Is Everywhere?” Smithsonian, Smithsonian.com, 21 Mar. 2018, www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/artificial-intelligence-future-scenarios-180968403.

K, Anirudh V. “What Are the Types of Artificial Intelligence: Narrow, General, and Super AI Explained |.” Spiceworks, 10 Feb. 2022, www.spiceworks.com/tech/artificial-intelligence/articles/types-of-ai/#:~:text=While%20narrow%20AI%20refers%20to.

Anderson, Janna, and Lee Rainie. “Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humans.” Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech, Pew Research Center, 10 Dec. 2018, www.pewresearch.org/internet/2018/12/10/artificial-intelligence-and-the-future-of-humans/.

JRE Clips. “Joe Rogan - Elon Musk on Artificial Intelligence.” YouTube, 6 Sept. 2018, www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ra3fv8gl6NE.