As AI becomes an increasingly prevalent part of the world, its impacts are becoming evermore apparent. The One Hundred Year Study on Artificial Intelligence does a fantastic job in describing the current state of AI and where it’s headed in the future. Despite it’s exemplary evaluation, there are two statements made that I believe are improper assumptions, which will be independently challenged.

First of all, In the portion of the study addressing AI policy, the essay claims: “Frustration in carrying out functions promised by a system diminishes people’s trust and reduces their willingness to use the system in the future.” I believe this is a bad assumption because of all the evident counterexamples we can find in society today. There are numerous instances of systems repeatedly failing people, but nonetheless, individuals still trust those systems. For example, healthcare professionals in the United States and around the world make occasional mistakes, some of which are life threatening. Despite this, people still trust doctors and healthcare institutions. Another example is the public school system. The public school system regularly fails young individuals, which negatively affects the rest of their life. However, society maintains this institution because we know it produces a far superior outcome than not having one. Likewise, we still put our full faith in doctors despite their shortcomings because we know the chances of a preferable outcome are significantly higher.

In addition, the study states: “Likewise, AI could widen existing inequalities of opportunity if access to AI technologies – along with the high-powered computation and large-scale data that fuel many of them – is unfairly distributed across society.” I do not believe that AI has a high chance of producing greater inequalities (of opportunity) for two reasons. The first reason is that advancements in technology have greatly reduced inequality, far more than it has increased it. For example, technology has reduced the once massive gap in expected lifespans of rich and non-rich Americans. More than this, the way in which Americans live life is more equal than ever, and has provided the most equal playing field of all time. For instance, you can learn anything on the Internet, which can provide you with opportunities unimaginable to generations before us. As a result of this, information is no longer restricted to a small subset of people. Additionally, a large majority of the population, both rich and non-rich, have access to resources like cars and smartphones, which makes the way we all live our everyday lives more equal than ever. The second reason I don’t believe AI has much potential to lead to inequalities of opportunity is that AI will rapidly accelerate the inevitable trend towards a post-scarcity society. A post-scarcity society will completely change the way everyone lives his or her lives. In this future with more resources than needs, everyone will have the opportunity to pursue their goals without needing to worry about having enough to meet their basic needs and more. Equality of opportunity will be bountiful when everybody is provided with virtually everything they need to succeed and basic survival is no longer a roadblock to success.

