According to a study by the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), About 80% of people in the world use Artificial Intelligence every day and don’t know it. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is in chatbots, image, video and music generators, to name a few simple everyday things. Technological assistants became an integral part of our lives: answer queries, control home devices, filter emails between spam and not, facial recognition as a security measure, automatic translations, real-time deductions, recommendations through algorithms, among many other actions and interactions that we have with technology almost without we figure out. Artificial Intelligence intervenes in all this and much more.
In terms of software development, Artificial Intelligence is generating development spaces that were unthinkable more than 20 years ago. We are undergoing a very rapid paradigm shift, in which software is no longer a system-person relationship, but rather we as people are already within the systems. Each movement of ours stimulates a point in the system that generates information, which then helps someone make decisions. The challenges for the future are really important, where Artificial Intelligence will be the protagonist.
There is no doubt that Artificial Intelligence is here to stay and that it has become one of the most relevant technologies of these times. Its economic and social impact is incalculable. What will be its scope? Nobody knows, but we can predict that both the public and private spheres will have to focus their investments and developments in this direction, because technologies based on Artificial Intelligence will continue to evolve and be perfected, and what must now be defined is the purpose. what, with what objective, and what are its consequences. It is because of that, In 2024, a series of debates and ethical issues that have been the subject of discussion both in the scientific community and in society in general must be deepened. Some of the most relevant debates include:
Ethics and Responsibility: AI raises questions about ethics and responsibility in the development and use of intelligent systems. Who is responsible in case of erroneous decisions or negative consequences of an AI system? How can ethical principles be incorporated into algorithm design? Is there an impact of artificial intelligence on the balance of influence of countries? Is artificial intelligence a technology that will define a new concept of power?
Discrimination and Bias: AI algorithms can inherit biases existing in the data sets used for their training. This can lead to discriminatory decisions, for example, in the selection of job candidates or in the approval of loans or even more so in public safety policies and procedures. Find methods and practices that help identify biases in one of the most important technical challenges of AI.
Interpretability and explainability: AI models, especially those based on deep learning, are often difficult to understand. The software’s lack of ability to interpret and/or explain the decisions or results it does not provide can generate distrust. How can developers make AI systems more understandable to users and those affected by AI decisions?
Privacy: Mass data collection to train AI models raises privacy concerns. How can you ensure ethical data collection and use practices? What measures should be taken to protect people’s privacy? Approaches such as symbolic AI based on synthetic data can contribute here.
Job Displacement: AI-driven automation can have an impact on employment, displacing certain jobs and creating a need for new skills. This raises questions about social responsibility and the need to develop policies that address the economic and social impact of AI.
Security: As AI becomes more advanced, security concerns are also being raised. How can AI systems be protected against malicious attacks? What measures should be taken to ensure the integrity of critical AI systems?
Autonomy and Decision Making: The implementation of autonomous systems and automated decision-making raise questions about who should be responsible in the event of failure and how ethical limits can be set for AI autonomy.
These debates reflect the complexity of integrating AI into society in an ethical and responsible manner and underline the importance of a multidisciplinary approach that includes experts in ethics, law, data science and other related disciplines. The search for answers to these questions and solutions to these concerns becomes essential. This 2024 the focus should not only be on greater developments and investments in AI, but also on perfecting all these issues that affect people’s lives, because although AI advances and scales rapidly, people are part of it. , and as I mentioned at the beginning, we are all within the development systems themselves.
*Alejandro Bianchi He is founder and president of LIVEWARE -Software Engineering-.
by Alejandro Bianchi
