Artificial Intelligence Advantages & Disadvantages

What is AI (Artificial Intelligence)

In short, AI provides a computer program the ability to think and learn on its own. It is a simulation of human intelligence (hence, artificial) into machines to do things that we would normally rely on humans to do. In general, there are three main types of AI based on its capabilities – they are weak AI, strong AI, and super AI.

Weak (Narrow) AI – Focuses on one task and cannot perform beyond its limitations (common in our daily lives)

Strong (General) AI – Can understand and learn any intellectual task that a human being can (researchers are striving to reach strong AI)

Super AI – Surpasses human intelligence and can perform any task better than a human (still a concept)

Advantages of AI

1. Medical Application – Artificial intelligence technologies can help doctors more quickly diagnosis patients through data analysis and health risk identification. This ability to analyze large amounts of data quickly can lead to personalized treatment plans and better health outcomes.

• Faster Decision Making – AI technology can help industries and the businesses that comprise them make decisions faster with more certainty than they previously could. These decisions can help save lives and prevent sometimes costly mistakes associated with high-stakes decision making.

• Pattern Identification – Some AI technologies can be programmed to find patterns and trends. Such patterns can be found in customer behavior and market trends. This data can be used to help businesses improve their decision making and ultimately improve business outcomes.

• Unbiased Decisions – It may be hard to admit, but human beings are often driven by emotions, controllable or not. AI on the other hand, is devoid of emotions and highly practical and rational in its approach. A huge advantage of Artificial Intelligence is that it doesn’t have any biased views, which removes that factor altogether from the decision-making process.

• Reduction in Human Error – One of the biggest advantages of Artificial Intelligence is that it can significantly reduce errors and increase accuracy and precision. The decisions taken by AI in every step is decided by information previously gathered and a certain set of algorithms. When programmed properly, these errors can be reduced to null.

Disadvantages of AI

1. Unemployment – One application of artificial intelligence is using robots to execute tasks that would normally be carried out by humans. This displacement increases unemployment (in a few cases). Therefore, it can be rationalized that there is always a chance of unemployment as a result of chatbots and robots replacing humans.
2. High Costs – “The ability to create a machine that can simulate human intelligence is no small feat. It requires plenty of time and resources and can cost a huge deal of money. AI also needs to operate on the latest hardware and software to stay updated and meet the latest requirements, thus making it quite costly”.
3. Emotionless – We have always been taught that neither computers nor other machines have feelings. However, there is no denying that robots are superior to humans in execution, minus any glitches. It is also true that human connections cannot be replaced by computers. Conclusion, a computer won’t feel one way or another about the task it has to perform or the conclusions it makes from the analyzing of data.

Duggal, N. (2023, July 28). Top advantages and disadvantages of Artificial Intelligence [2023 edition]. Simplilearn.com. https://www.simplilearn.com/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-artificial-intelligence-article#what_is_artificial_intelligence