The 100 year study on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its review on AI’s progress through 2015 reveals a lot about where the world is headed in terms of how such a broad field of technology can have an impact on our society today and in the future. The authors of this continuous study seem to represent the best and brightest in the business coming from industry, academia and other research areas that combine to create a comprehensive analysis. While the authors here examine 8 specific “domains” which they find most significant to society (transportation, home/service robots, healthcare, education, low-resource communities, public safety/security, employment and workplace and entertainment), they do not fully emphasize the negative aspects that AI could possibly bring to the forefront. 

The authors of this installation of the 100 year study on AI extensively discuss positives in each of the 8 domains that they chose to examine. Examples include self driving cars which are far safer than human drivers, collection and systematized management of electronic health records as well as improved camera/drone surveillance for predicative policing. The positive effects on society that AI systems such as these can have is quite obvious, but what about privacy and the influence that these technologies can have on things such as information? A perfect example is the filtration of news and the manipulation of voting sites such as Reddit. This kind of control could easily affect the minds of thousands of people and in turn alter the fabric of society as belief systems are influenced. Newsfeeds controlled by AI that are meant to serve the interests of a private news corporation rather than informing the general public of what is happening throughout the world may very well influence the decisions that people make. It is these kinds of situations where AI may be used for malevolent purposes. 

While the authors do touch a bit on privacy and security concerns, they do not go nearly far enough. In Section III, the authors point out that policy/legal considerations with regard to AI are beyond the scope of the 100 Year Study. However, just as with drone regulations and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), AI’s compliance to laws and regulations with respect to privacy and security is entirely important. Not just important—it is crucial to making sure that AI is used for good and not bad. To leave something like this out of such a comprehensive study conducted by the best experts in the world is kind of silly. It seems to be the case that with AI, the industry (in all facets) has, for lack of a better term, jumped into the deep end instead of wading out into the water. Both positive and negative sides of Artificial Intelligence need to be fully examined for this to be a complete study. The impact that such a broad field can have on our society and the world in which we live is too great for any one aspect to be left out. As newer technology is being developed at an even quicker rate, more thought needs to be put into the potential negative, rather than just the positive, effects that AI can have.
