Leading Technologies - Helping Humanity Reach It's Peak Or Setting Us Up For A Great Fall?
In todays world, technology is advancing faster than ever before. No doubt that there are many advantages of this but everything has 2 sides and sometimes it feels like the dangers of this advancements could cost us a lot more than what it can benefit us for a short period of time. Talking about the destructive & harmful technology, the first thing that everyone thinks of is Nuclear weapons.
Nuclear Weapons Development
As Albert Einstein said "Mankind invented the atomic bomb, but no mouse would ever construct a mousetrap." , the invention of nuclear weapons has been one of the most destructive invention every made by man. In the year 1938 a group of German physicist had made the first Atom bomb after the discovery of nuclear fission. They discovered that when a radioactive material gets split into different atoms, it releases a large amount of energy that could be used to cause mass destruction.
Since their discovery, 2,055 nuclear weapons have been detonated for the sake of showing power and for research purposes mostly by the Soviet Union & the United States. Even though being used only twice in war, the death toll by these weapons was somewhere around 1,29,000 to 2,26,000 people most of which were civilians. But that was in the 1945, only 7 years of development but todays nukes can cause destruction that would be thousands of time worse.
Artificial Intelligence Development
AI is one of the fastest growing technology & it is currently evolving and growing smarter everyday. Being introduced in 1955, almost each year since then, AI has learnt something new and has gotten much more faster. These super Intelligent machines have already started replacing humans by doing tasks much faster, more efficient and much cheaper than what a human being would do. For example, large delivery factories that would once require hundreds of people to pack, arrange, transfer & deliver a parcel, require only one person to push activate the machines to do all the work and drones to deliver the parcels. But how long before even this person is not required anymore and the machines become smart enough to run by themselves?
We have had brilliant people like Stephen Hawking who had already warned us about how AI could be dangerous. At a BBC interview in 2014 he said "The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race." & he may be right. Today, AI can recognize faces, places, animals, fingerprints and even products being sold online. AI has gotten to a point now where it can learn and develop from experience and collecting data. For example self-driving cars drive on the bases of it's surrounding by scanning the near by vehicles and roads thoroughly.
Social Media & Smartphones Development
With the connection of internet & other networks, the first ever social media website was made in 1997 called SixDegrees.com that had an initial run till 2001 then was shut down and brought back up after a few years. These type of websites were originally made to keep people connected. Later many other sites were founded that had gotten even more success and brought many people together. At first it was all good and it felt like a getaway from the real world, but currently social media addiction has become a major issue for People of all ages.
Studies from IDC have shown that almost 80% of smartphone users check their phone within 15 minutes of waking up every morning. This addiction can firstly cause a waste of valuable time & it has become such a norm, that people don't bother admitting that they are addicted or get any help. Another thing is the damage it does to us physically like eye strains & head aches from continuously looking at a screen, becoming lazy by being seated at a place and playing games with friends online rather than actually meeting them and getting some physical exercise.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it's too late now to stop the nuclear weapons but AI on the other hand can still be reduced. People like Elon Musk & Bill Gates are also concerned about the development of advance AI and they say it shouldn't be developed. Social media and smartphones development could take a turn for the better if people realize to use them accordingly and not waste their lives away in front of a screen.