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UGM Regional Sales Manager
We are standing on the threshold of a moment when we are faced with the rise of a new technological wave created by artificial intelligence. We have never witnessed technologies with such transformative potential. With artificial intelligence, we can learn the secrets of the universe, cure unsolved diseases, and create new forms of art and culture that challenge the imagination. A new technological revolution is about to begin in which many jobs will be done by machines today. However, even if we manage to solve the economic effects of “complete automation of jobs,” the consequences on the quality of life remain uncertain.
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is no different than magic.”
Arthur C. Clarke, 1962
INFORMATION SOCIETY
The Luddite rebellion, started by skilled (artisan) British textile workers in the Great British Empire in the 19th century, emerged as a reaction to the fact that workers with low skills could do their jobs faster using machines. The rebellion, which lasted two years and included the destruction of machines, was suppressed in 1813 and ended with harsh punishments given to the rebels.
A group of economists believe that unemployment caused by the arrival of new technologies is temporary. New jobs replace the lost jobs and after a while, the crisis ends under new conditions. The history of industrial society also confirms this. First, mechanical automation technologies come to agriculture and there is a flow of workers from agriculture to the manufacturing industry; then, when automation technologies come to the manufacturing industry or these jobs are moved to cheap labor countries, there is a flow from the manufacturing industry to the service sector.
So, can we see the transition to the information society we live in today in the same way by looking at the Luddite example? If so, what kind of social organization are we transitioning from an industrial society to? Some call the new social order an information society.
The information society can be classified as follows:
a) Capital-owning class
b) Qualified workers (The segment that creates economic values based on knowledge and receives the largest share of the wealth created.): Successful workers in this group can become high-income earners and join the capital-owning class one step later. The most obvious example of this segment is angel investors
c) Blue-collar (manual labor) routine labor force working in the manufacturing industry: The blue-collar segment working in the manufacturing industry consists of laborers who can be gradually replaced by machines depending on technological developments and wages. They are constantly facing the danger of unemployment, and this danger can sometimes be the introduction of robots, and sometimes the shift of production to cheap labor countries.
d) White-collar workers working in the service sector and performing routine mental production: Especially with the increase in artificial intelligence techniques in recent years, it is possible that white-collar workers working in the service sector will also be replaced by automation.
e) People working together in the service sector (waiters, hotel staff, teachers, nurses, etc.): This group, who must always be smiling and well-mannered, is forced to pay low wages due to competition, but they are protected against automation due to cultural reasons. People generally want to receive service from people, not robots. However, in countries such as Japan, where the young population is decreasing, there are an increasing number of robot nurses and caregivers for the elderly.
f) Bureaucrats working in the public sector: This group is currently kept away from the danger of automation under the protection of politics.
The fundamental difference that distinguishes the information society from the industrial society is that the majority of the value produced, whether it is a concrete product or a service, occurs at the design stage, and therefore the total value is created by much more qualified and creative labor than natural resources and routine labor. In this case, both the substitution of routine labor with machines and the “dominance of the best” provided by global technological access create income inequalities at the national level. The situation of billions of ordinary workers who are stuck between machines and creative labor becomes difficult.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE…
Intelligence is measured by the ability to take the right actions to achieve specified goals. All other intelligence features such as perception, thinking, learning, and invention can only be evaluated to the extent of their contribution to achieving our goals. Similarly, machines can be understood to the extent of the appropriateness of the methods they choose to achieve certain goals. Since machines cannot have goals like humans, these goals can only be determined by humans, loaded onto machines, and operated to serve this purpose. This action is constantly repeated in the technological foundations of our society. The task of automatic control systems designed for everything from jumbo jets to insulin pumps has been determined to minimize deviation from the targeted behavior.
Artificial intelligence (AI), which entered the literature in 1955, is now found in many products, services, and devices we use. There are several applications in every area of life based on techniques that were considered impossible a decade ago. The development of deep learning using artificial neural networks in 2011 led to significant breakthroughs in three important areas of artificial intelligence- speech recognition, facial recognition, visual object recognition, and translation. Although artificial intelligence is available on your mobile phone or at home in applications such as Apple's Siri, Amazon's Alexa, or Microsoft's Tay, it also makes decisions on many important issues such as finance, defense systems, and public safety, creates websites, and can determine the best time to buy and sell stocks by detecting small fluctuations in the stock market. Artificial intelligence is gaining popularity all over the world every day. An increasing number of people are specializing in the field of artificial intelligence. In 2020, American artificial intelligence startups raised approximately $38 billion in funding. Companies in Asia reached a fund size of $8 billion.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE INVESTIGATION OF ANTIBIOTICS
Earlier that year, researchers from MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) announced the discovery of a new antibiotic that can kill bacteria that have shown resistance to all antibiotics known to date.
Developing a new drug requires researchers to start with thousands of possible molecules, and narrow it down to a certain number of candidates through trial and error and guesswork, a very expensive and meticulous process that takes years.
MIT did something different and incorporated artificial intelligence. The researchers first created a training set of two thousand known molecules. The training set encoded data about each molecule, ranging from its atomic weight to the types of bonds it contains and its ability to inhibit bacterial growth.
From this training set, the AI learned the properties of molecules predicted to be antibacterial. Once the training was complete, the researchers instructed the AI to scan a library of 61,000 molecules, FDA-approved drugs, and natural products: molecules that the AI predicted would be effective as antibiotics, that were similar to no known antibiotics, and that were non-toxic. Out of the 61,000 molecules, only one molecule met all the criteria. The researchers named this new antibiotic halicin. Experts noted that it was possible to reach this drug through traditional R&D methods, but it would be very expensive and take a long time.
ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN DISEASE DIAGNOSIS PROCESSES…
Technologies that have advanced a lot in image processing and recognition with artificial intelligence techniques are entering the field of radiology, which has expertise in image-based diagnosis in medicine. More generally, there are increasing indications that artificial intelligence techniques in disease diagnosis processes can introduce radical automation possibilities to the field of medicine with much faster and more accurate examples. Similarly, artificial intelligence programs that will support judges and lawyers by examining past cases and examples in the field of law seem to be able to reduce the number of consultant experts in the field of law.
PERHAPS PEOPLE WILL BE PROHIBITED FROM DRIVING
Although the development of artificial intelligence falls short of the expectations of experts in the field, it continues unabated. In 2004, some economists argued that autonomous (driverless) cars were not possible shortly, but just one year later in 2005, a car designed at Stanford University successfully covered more than 200 km in an autonomous vehicle competition organized by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). Ten years later, news about the success of autonomous vehicles began to increase.
At this rate, there will likely be no vehicles driven by humans in the next 30 years, and perhaps even humans will be banned from driving.
Once autonomous vehicles become widespread, it will be time for cargo services to be automated. Companies like Amazon are working hard to automate their supply chains. Chinese autonomous driving startup Inceptio Technology says that its trucks have covered 100 million kilometers without an accident, setting a record for the autonomous long-distance logistics industry. As AI’s cognitive abilities, situational awareness, and physical skills improve (it won chess in 1999, Jeopardy in 2011, and Go in 2016), the list of tasks that could be automated grows longer every day.
CAN PREDICT LANDMINES 92 PERCENT
The US Air Force has stated that a test flight lasting more than an hour was carried out with an artificial intelligence-controlled F-16 fighter jet called Vista and that not using this technology poses a security risk. It is said that artificial intelligence can predict the location of landmines with up to 92 percent accuracy. Google introduced the Alphafold 3 artificial intelligence model in a blog post it shared. Until now, AlphaFold models predicted the structures of proteins. The new version of the model, AlphaFold3, stands out with its ability to predict the complex structures and interactions of the basic molecules of life such as DNA, RNA, and ligands beyond proteins. The extent to which artificial intelligence has revolutionized our world is seen from the scale of media publications about technology. According to a new analysis, a story about artificial intelligence is published in the world media every 24 seconds.
TECHNOLOGICAL UNEMPLOYMENT…
The unstoppable march of artificial intelligence shows the truth of Herbert Simon’s prediction in 1956 that “machines will one day be able to do everything that humans do.” Everyone now believes that machines will be able to do many jobs by 2045. Just as tractors first reduced and then eliminated the role of horses in agricultural production, certainly, the role of humans in production will gradually decrease. When we withdraw money from ATMs or check in at airport kiosks, we can see how technology is displacing human labor.
LEISURE TIME ACTIVITIES WILL INCREASE!
It is predicted that bank branches will soon lay off half of their staff. According to a report prepared by McKinsey Global in 2017; activities that can be automated on a global scale cover a total of 1.1 billion full-time equivalent workers, corresponding to a total wage of 15.8 trillion US dollars. Half of these amounts, both in terms of wages and number of workers, are in the economies of China, India, the US, and Japan. So what will these people do then? The typical answer is that leisure activities will increase. Of course, the economic system will need a radical restructuring if billions of people are idle. Perhaps a society that is supported by a few wealthy people and a lot of state aid will emerge. This is reminiscent of the “panem et incenses” practice of free bread and unlimited entertainment to keep the unemployed masses occupied during the collapse of ancient Rome. I don’t think this is a bright future. I believe that being useful is essential to the human spirit.
THE RESULT OF NOT LISTENING TO GOD'S WORD!
Everyone knows the story told in the Bible's Book of Genesis and the Torah. God puts Adam and Eve, whom he created, into paradise and tells them, "Eat everything, but do not eat from the forbidden tree that holds the knowledge of good and evil." Satan tricks Eve into eating the fruit, and Eve convinces Adam to eat the same fruit. This incident leads to both of them being expelled from paradise. God says to Adam, "I cursed the ground because of you because you ate from the tree I told you not to eat. You will never find food without working all your life. You will earn your bread by sweat until you return to the ground you were created in." So, according to this story, our need to work to earn our living is the result of not listening to God's word.
Let's think about what happened before and after people were expelled from paradise. Before they were expelled, Adam and Eve spent their time in paradise, so to speak, with bread and water. It cannot be said that they had a better life than the apes. After they came to earth, they had to work. Working made them creative. They learned to hunt, discovered fire, the wheel, agriculture, and finally the Industrial Revolution. All of these are discoveries that transformed human civilization and changed the course of history forever
THE SECRETS OF THE UNIVERSE, THE CURE FOR UNSOLVED DISEASES…
Now; we stand on the threshold of a moment when we are faced with the rise of a new technological wave that will be created by artificial intelligence. We have never witnessed technologies with such transformative potential before. With artificial intelligence, we can learn the secrets of the universe, cure unsolved diseases, and create new forms of art and culture that challenge the imagination.
Today, a new technological revolution is about to begin in which many jobs will be done by machines. However, even if we manage to solve the economic effects of completely automating jobs, the consequences on the quality of life remain uncertain.
CAN WE HAVE A GOOD LIFE WITHOUT WORKING?
The question we face today is whether we can have a good life without working. In the long term, AI is likely to automate almost all of the current human workforce. This will not only affect low-skilled jobs like truck driving. As we have seen, even highly skilled professionals like doctors, lawyers, and accountants are at risk.
What if machines did all the work and provided us with regular income support? Wouldn’t a life without financial trouble be a rosy life? If there was no work, there would be no need for learning and skill development. How will life continue for people who are completely dependent on machines, who cannot learn, have no skills, and cannot pass on what they know to future generations? How will humanity occupy itself in the presence of artificial intelligence? The most fundamental question facing today’s society is this.
Source:
1-Interview with Prof. Kemal İnan, Birikim Magazine, January 2019
2-Moshe Vardi, The future of work Pacific Standard, June 2017
3-The age of AI E. Scmidt, H. Kissinger, D. Huttenlocher, 2021
