Artificial Intelligence is Transforming Our World – Are We Ready?

Abstract

Our world is changing. Cars drive themselves. Automated grocery stores allow customers to shop without employees in the store. Drones manage and spray our farm fields. Software applications control access, temperature and lighting in our smart homes. Autonomous robots clean our houses. Voice-controlled virtual assistants help ease the burdens of many daily tasks. Facial recognition cameras help identify persons of interest in busy crowds. Imaging analysis software helps doctors provide medical diagnosis more quickly and accurately than ever.

These are just some examples of how artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing our society in unprecedented ways. In fact, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)—the government branch primarily responsible for overseeing innovation in the U.S.—expects AI to “revolutionize the world on the scale of … electricity.”i It is worth pausing to conceptualize the level of impact at issue. Imagine our world without electricity. Whether good or bad—whether we like it or not—this is the level of change at stake in the AI revolution. Driven by massive amounts of data, often collected from individuals, AI is able to emulate human intelligence and perform tasks historically performed by people. What was once science fiction will be tomorrow’s new normal. Although we have already moved past whether we should adopt AI into our lives, we should not overlook the important question of whether we are ready to adopt this quickly evolving technology.

Emerging AI applications will undoubtedly advance our technology and improve our lives. They will likely make our roads safer and our homes more comfortable, improve our food production and ease the burdens of many everyday tasks. There exists a dark side to such advancement, however, and the meteoric rise of AI technology will certainly raise many significant societal questions. There is perhaps no greater uncertainty than how AI will impact our economic growth and likely displace some of our workforce in coming decades.

Much closer on the horizon, three pressing legal questions have already emerged and remain largely unanswered: First, who will be legally responsible when AI causes injury? Second, how will we protect the immense value of AI innovation? Third, how will we balance the competing interests of AI’s societal benefits with its societal costs, such as reduced individual privacy? Before considering these legal gray areas—AI liability, innovation and privacy—it is pivotal to first understand the scope and the importance of specificity when addressing AI.