AsiaIndustrial NetworkNews: The era of artificial intelligence has arrived. This may not only be a change in technology, but will eventually evolve into a change in social development. Technology brings more efficient connections, and the mobile internet has made the connection time to the extreme. The new direction of technology in the future must be the improvement of connection efficiency. For a sci-fi fan, we might end up living in the world of Ghost in the Shell. With the advent of artificial intelligence, another more serious question may be: Will artificial intelligence eventually replace human beings? The following are some superficial studies of my own, hoping to help everyone.
virtual world in movies
When I was studying in the United States in 1998, a classmate recommended me to watch a cartoon by chance: Ghost in the shell (Ghost in the Shell).
This cartoon had a great impact on me, and I watched it no less than 5 times at different times. Although the world described and the world view carried by “Ghost in the Shell” are a bit obscure, they are definitely shocking, and the music and pictures it shows can also be classified as classics. Its central idea can be quoted from the poem written by the Japanese Noh master Zeami in “Ghost in the Shell”: “Life and death come and go, and the puppet on the roof. When the line is broken, you will be free and honest.” In the final world, all human beings can leave is the soul, and all other bodies can be replaced by machines. This is also the meaning of the name Ghost in the shell, Ghost is our soul. However, if memory is also digital, are we really alive? As a 1995 cartoon, “Ghost in the Shell” really showed us the world decades later.
In 1999, my favorite “The Matrix” trilogy began to be released, and the content in it further deepened the idea of ”Ghost in the Shell”. Human beings have become puppets controlled by computers, living in a set virtual life. At the beginning of the film, Murphy asks Neo, do you want the blue pill or the red pill. This is a multiple-choice question full of philosophy. When we finish watching the three parts, we often think about the beginning, whether it is better to stay in the virtual world or see the real world in the end. There are a lot of religious and philosophical content in the second and third parts of “The Matrix”. The end of technology is philosophy, and the end of philosophy is religion. The development of science and technology to the end, what is left to us is the thinking of faith. The theme songs of “Ghost in the Shell” and “The Matrix” are also very similar. The soundtrack of the 95 version of “Ghost in the Shell” is the famous “Ballad”, and the whole song is full of religious mystery.
What is belief? Faith is the sum total of our understanding of the world.
The age of artificial intelligence has arrived
The futuristic world shown in Ghost in the Shell and The Matrix may be upon us.
With AlphaGo easily beating humans at Go, Texas Hold’em, and more and more jobs are beginning to berobotInstead, we have to face reality: the age of artificial intelligence has arrived. In the financial industry, artificial intelligence has rapidly replaced trading jobs.
The number of U.S. cash equities desk traders at Goldman Sachs headquarters in New York has dropped from a peak of 600 to 2. UBS’s trading floor in Connecticut, the size of two football fields, was almost completely closed, leaving only a few programmers. Bridgewater, the world’s largest hedge fund, has also begun large-scale layoffs of fund managers, and began to use artificial intelligence to replace fund managers. Today’s artificial intelligence has a deep learning function, not simply repeating instructions. The more transactions, the more data collected, the stronger the algorithmic ability.
In fact, in the past ten years overseas, trading systems have used algorithmic trading functions extensively. This algorithmic trading function also requires traders to enter orders. In today’s artificial intelligence era, with the rise of deep learning capabilities, even traders who input orders can be replaced, opening a new revolution for the entire financial industry. The figure below comes from a research report by UBS, which vividly explains the path of the new generation of artificial intelligence: by inputting algorithms and data, the answer can be obtained in the process of program evolution. Then through the answers and data, the algorithm is obtained. This is an evolving system.
Artificial intelligence is replacing many of our jobs. According to research published in 2013 by Oxford University’s Carl Benedikt Frey and Michael Osborne, 47 percent of jobs in the United States are currently at “high risk” of being replaced by Robots.Merrill Lynch also has an in-depth report, predicting that by 2025, the annual disruptive value brought by artificial intelligence will be between 14 and 33 trillion, of which 9 trillion will come fromautomationFor labor cost savings. So what kind of work will be replaced by robots? Simply put, it is to do assembly line work. We have seen that Robotic arms have replaced assembly line workers in the manufacturing industry in the past 20 years, and they can run 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
In the future, a large number of assembly line work will be gradually replaced by artificial intelligence. According to research, approximately 47% of jobs in the United States are under competitive pressure from robots. In fact, the median income in the United States has declined in the past 20 years, which has already reflected the fact that some machines have replaced traditional “technicians”.
1 2 next page > page
Artificial intelligence will change our lives in several major fields in the future
The revolution of artificial intelligence in our life is not only to replace part of the work, but also to change our way of life in many ways. The core part is the improvement of efficiency.
From the perspective of economic growth in the big cycle, it basically depends on the improvement of currency, population and production efficiency. At present, the global population growth has gradually entered an inflection point, especially in developed countries, where population growth is generally negative, and China, the strongest developing country, is also at an inflection point, and the demographic dividend factor in global economic growth will weaken in the future. Looking at the currency again, since the financial crisis in 2008, the entire currency multiplier has been continuously increasing, and global central banks have increased leverage significantly. From the perspective of the Federal Reserve, which has global coinage rights, the next ten years will be the road to shrinking its balance sheet. Then the economy continues to grow, only by the improvement of the overall production efficiency. After the algorithmic ability of artificial intelligence has been greatly improved, combined with the massive data and deep learning ability of the Internet, it can greatly improve the production efficiency of our whole society. We believe that artificial intelligence may change our lives in the following industries:
retail services. The traditional retail model can’t get through B2C at all, and there is a layer of human service between merchants and customers. The human service is only to play the role of cashier and customer greeting. Driven by the new artificial intelligence, each customer will have a unique label, and the system algorithm can quickly identify user preferences based on the label and provide more accurate product push. Even a large amount of stock data can better match the supply and demand balance between users and merchants. Whether it is the new retail promoted by Ali or Amazon, they are all preparing for the era of artificial intelligence.
Traditional manufacturing upgrades. What artificial intelligence brings is not only the replacement of labor in the manufacturing industry, but also the optimization of production lines and production capacity. Let’s take automobiles as an example. In the past, the traditional production lines were all aimed at a specific model. Therefore, production often faces the situation of lagging demand. Once a new model is launched, it will take months or even a year for the product to ramp up. Then a few years later, the model will be iterated, and a new production line will need to be built. In the era of artificial intelligence, the production line will become more and more flexible and can be changed according to the needs.This will greatly increaseindustryManufacturing productivity.
More efficient social connections. For the first time, the Internet has brought connections all over the world, and the mobile Internet has changed this connection from a few hours to a 24-hour round-the-clock. Artificial intelligence can help social connections to be more efficient. Today we have seen information, and information is accurately matched with everyone through algorithms. In the future, social networking can also be matched more efficiently through artificial intelligence tools. The social needs of different people can be connected on the artificial intelligence platform, and more efficient connections can improve social efficiency. Everyone can quickly find the community and friends they want according to their own requirements at different times and stages. At the same time, business connections can be made faster.
Replacement for high precision work. For example, surgical robots in medical care have already been born. In the future, high-precision services such as medical surgery, ophthalmology, and dentistry will be replaced by artificial intelligence. Even the unmanned driving system is a high-precision work. Artificial intelligence can replace our current drivers, greatly reduce the proportion of traffic accidents with almost zero error, and can also find the optimal driving route at any time.
The figure below is from a UBS research report on the impact of artificial intelligence replacing labor on different industries.
Ultimately, it is us that AI hopes to replace. . .
Whether it is some sci-fi movies or some recent discussions, there is an ultimate question: whether artificial intelligence can replace human beings. I watched “The Selfish Gene” before, and I had a very in-depth analysis of the ability of human beings to dominate the earth for tens of thousands of years. As creatures, human beings are not the most powerful, but they are the most algorithmic. Compared with all creatures, the power of human beings lies in the brain algorithm, which allows human beings to follow the optimal choice among the hundreds of millions of choices in tens of thousands of years. This optimal choice allows us to dominate the world, controlling animals with strength and speed greater than ours. In the past, it was difficult for us to imagine that new organisms could evolve to the point where algorithms were superior to humans. But today, artificial intelligence will obviously be better than humans in this area. Once the artificial intelligence gains consciousness (I believe it will come), it will be a disaster for human beings. The “Matrix” we watched when we were young may really become a reality.
Another terrible crisis brought about by technological progress is described in the masterpiece “Ghost in the Shell”: technological totalitarianism. Technological totalitarianism is a huge control system composed of capital and technology. In the age of ultimate artificial intelligence, everything is an interface. Everything a human being needs to do needs to be done through an interface. Even if the “body” is free, the maintenance of the interface requires cost, and it is controlled by some large groups. This is “freedom” in the age of artificial intelligence. All freedom is actually controlled.
There is also such a description in the later domestic science fiction hard novel “Three-Body Problem”: Destiny is within the light cone, and information outside the light cone is impossible for you to discover. The inside and outside of the light cone is a physical universe, but It is the two worlds of fate. All you can grasp is the information coming from within the light cone, and this is destiny. In other words, changing your destiny is also within your destiny.
In this world, the company that really owns the interface is called Google. Their Android system has become pervasive. In fact, the two founders are even more than ready for the eventual AI world. There is a special rule in their
