01/07 & 01/08: Saving the World with Algorithms Blog Post
What are some other ways that you would like to see artificial intelligence “save the world”? Give an example of a problem and potential solution using AI and explain your choice, why this issue, and why this solution.
Based on the video we watched, the discussions that took place talked about how AI is “saving the world” through helping to decrease poaching and catch these poachers before it occurs, to be able to make our everyday foods with healthier plant based products and avoid using meat products that can harm the world through things such as producing green house gases, and being able to predict (or work on predicting) when a large earth quake might occur. Although these are very good problem topics that would be very beneficial for AI to help fix or prevent, there are other ways that I would like to see AI “save the world” with problems such as the current global health with not only the pandemic going on but also other contagious outbreaks or diseases. This is such a big problem and I chose it because we are all facing global health problems right now during the pandemic and the virus cases have risen higher. Everyone has been impacted in some ways with this virus and should be aware and feared for their health, unless they’re not aware and living under a rock. Hospitals are filling up very quickly and there isn’t much help anymore when they completely fill for not only infected patients but also patients who are experiencing other health problems such as maybe a heart attack or seizures who need help. A large thing that I think our technology could help with here is trying to come up with ways to improve safety standards and tests. I think that AI could really help prevent or numb down this problem so it is not something that needs to be feared as much or something that seems impossible to fix, although we would still need to address this problem and not forget about it completely even if it has at least a small solution because it is, still, a virus. There are some ways that I think could be possible solutions we could come up with through these technologies that could help maybe help us understand how to be safe and how to improve upon things we are already doing such as maybe finding more improved COVID tests that can go faster and be more accurate, advancing the things like masks or thermometers to reach the safety standards, or find easier ways to attempt to treat people with the vaccine because I am aware the are looking for more people to give these out. I came up with all of these solutions because, although we already have made a couple of these happen, they are more at a basic standard and even though they're making some impact, I feel like our newer technology could find ways to improve it. Each of these solutions apply to the problems we need answers and help to most right now, meaning having a solution would be very beneficial. AI has really seemed to be helpful with the idea it is going to “save the world” in multiple points of world problems such as the world’s health in which is why I think that these advanced technologies would be the best to take on this problem and help find similar solutions such as the ones I gave that include finding the more advanced tests, improved materials such as masks, and easier ways to give vaccines.
(Examples of our basic masks we have been using today for this pandemic)
(More examples of our basic equipment such as the thermometers today)
Thinking back to our discussions about smart speakers and self-driving cars, what ethical issues do you see coming from your proposed solution and why? If you don’t think there are any, explain why.
From our previous discussion on ethical issues, along with filling out the ethical matrix in which was a very beneficial set up to see all of the issues and factors within the problems that were brought, I can definitely see that there would be ethical issues coming our way if we decided to use the solutions I came up with. For example, the more advanced COVID tests solution. Based on the solution, some ethical issues I think could occur include the things ranging from the price (if this is technology and we need to test people all around the world, that would be very expensive), how much we need of these tests (again because there are a lot of people around the world, we’d need large numbers of this), and material (if this is a type of machinery they would use within the AI or whether it be something more basic, we’d still need to be able to have access to lots of it). I also feel that it could impact several different groups of people in this factor, such as how we filled out in our matrixes, that could include the groups of patients who need to be tested, doctors who are giving out these tests, the creator of these tests because they have to fit all of the standards to be successful in actually making a difference, and other pedestrians who may feel the need to get tested in case they have symptoms. With this AI trying to solve the problem of our global health right now, there will most definitely be ethical issues to consider if we were trying to help solve some very poor factors in the pandemic because it has spread so widely and is one of the largest problems at the moment.
