The city might not be perfect as seen in cyberpunk novellas, thanks to the man’s subtle imperfections. Yet, Europe has enough opportunities that’ll demonstrate the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) over human evolution.
Yuval Noah Harari deems mankind’s ability to gossip and create a social structure as a highlight of its evolution. Along comes the trade and commerce as bartering conformed to newfound ethics of society. As a result, the socio-economic environment came into being, which took both the social and economic factors of civilization. It proved to be a starkly visible parameter of evolution. As civilization evolved, so did the socio-economic factors.
The discovery and merging of artificial intelligence with human consciousness will be the next step of evolution for humans.
Clearly, socio-economic factors will be affected first. The slow changes are visible as business and commerce are starting to use machine learning algorithms to make certain processes smooth. To boost consumerism, online stores use AI so they can suggest similar products to online shoppers.
AI’s services to the banking and commerce industry are raising economic growth and lowering human input concurrently. The work hours put in by the human resources have drastically reduced in the last 40 years. Yet, automation also leads to scrapping of jobs that will be taken over by AI. As a corollary, it will result in less tax revenues. European countries are agreeing to levy a ‘robot tax’ if that happens. This tax will be paid by companies who have assigned AI and robots to take over their human jobs.
AI’s economic boost will call for a universal basic income. It’ll prove to be a revolutionizing move for the society. Jobs will be taken, but many more will be created in return.
According to a forum post on Debating Europe, AI can never replace humans for the simple reason that AI’s ‘learning’ abilities cannot develop the lateral thought process required to deal with the random stupidity of some humans.
How well a country is fed, also determines its socio-economic evolution. The agriculture sector can use AI analytics and robotics to predict weather, improve soil quality, and reduce human labor at farms. A study conducted by Indian researchers concluded that the use of Internet of Things, AI software, and big data analytics can add more than $8.5 billion annually to the agriculture sector.
To use AI’s full potential, it will require a society to fully reform itself, including its infrastructure. Europe can successfully do that due to its openness toward socio-economic changes. Germany, Spain, and the United Kingdom have invested the most in artificial intelligence. Hence, to see an economic graph influenced by AI, these three countries should be studied.
Germany has recently invested €3 billion in artificial intelligence. Their AI strategy has laid out a complex program to better education, research & development, training, and using multifaceted business blueprints in the automation industry. They are set to create at least 100 additional professorships in the field of AI. The Western-Central country is avoiding experimentations that involves directly integrating humans with artificial intelligence components.
Because of its slow, calculated, and effective moves, Germany could be the first futuristic city that fantasy and sci-fi movies try to emulate. Nations interested in reaching stratospheric heights in AI should follow Germany’s lead and build a complex AI strategy of their own.
