The future of artificial intelligence is both exciting and terrifying. It’s development will have an impact on your life over the next ten years, in more ways than one. While yes, it will have many positive impacts, The Malicious Use of Artificial Intelligence report recently warned that artificial intelligence could also be exploited by criminals and terrorists for negative use. We know, pretty scary stuff, right?
We wanted to delve a little deeper into the future of AI, so we spoke to some experts working in the industry about how it’s expected to affect your dating, work and personal life very soon…
Online dating will become safer (finally)
According to the National Crime Agency, the rise of online dating has resulted in an increased number of sexual assaults. But there’s hope that as technology advances, AI will be used to help prevent these crimes. And it would seem that progress has already been made in this field. Clémentine Lalande, Co-CEO at dating app Once, told us that ‘a branch of AI called Natural Language Processing allows us to understand human language and detect indicators of when a date is approaching between two users. This includes detecting different elements of the conversation, including wording, the amount of numbers exchanged, and how long the two have been talking. From this, we can evaluate the experience and detect if any dates are planned. This system also allows us to detect if the experience is bad for a user, and this can help us to take action more quickly on keeping our users safe.’
But, online dating won’t become more successful…
Mat Hunter, Director of Central Research Laboratory told us ‘whatever data we offer up to fine tune our search in the dating world, it appears that there is hidden complexity when it comes to predicting long term relationship success. Leading sites will offer us more hope in their matching engine, to find that one-in-a-million partner, probably via AI-assisted photo, video and voice analysis to give us an augmented sense of whether we should swipe right or left. The tech may not work any better than it does now in finding us a successful match, but it will keep us going back for more.’ So, basically it’s going to be something like Black Mirror’s ‘Hang The DJ’ episode, but real life? Great.
Online shopping will become easier and more personalised
Julia Ruane, who is Head of Content for PR agency Crisp Thinking, uses artificial intelligence to identify issues that major fashion brands (like Gucci and Chanel) may be facing online, especially in an age where practically everybody uses social media to stay connected with brands, as well as family and friends. She predicts that ‘AI is going to bridge the gap between label to user to shop. For example, on social media, finding influencers or bloggers who are wearing a certain label can be impossible without hundreds of manual human teams, but with AI you can search billions of images, videos and chats on social media in seconds.’ This will then bridge the gap between buyers and brands, ‘which means we’re also entering a world of mega personalisation.’
Some jobs may be in jeopardy
We’ve all heard the rumours that artificial intelligence and improvements in tech will result in job losses within some sectors. And it’s possible that these are true, especially for jobs that involve simple and repetitive tasks. But jobs that are complex and require human reason and understanding are likely to be safe – for now. Tim Stone, Vice President Marketing EMEA at Polycom reassured us on this, saying: ‘there is a misconception and illusion that robots are going to “take over” in the workplace – but I don’t believe that this is the case. Technology wouldn’t necessarily replace that crucial human-to-human connection. What it will do is simplify and ease the workload of mundane tasks to enable humans to be more productive and efficient.’
Your workplace might use AI to spy on you
The arrival of Amazon’s Alexa really got people talking about how businesses could be using AI to listen in on private conversations. Some people were even convinced that products like Alexa would secretly record conversations and store them in a database. With the further development of AI, it’s been rumoured that workplaces may be in on this, too. Mat Hunter told us: ‘more than one AI startup has offered to help me know how well my employees are working together, so that I can have a workplace that is “productive and fun”. But don’t workers mind that I am spying on them?’ Spooky, we know.
You will rely less on your memory
Matty Mariansky, the co-founder of Meekan by Doodle belives that ‘in the next ten years, it’s plausible that AI algorithms will be directing most of what we do on a day-to-day basis, as well as being able to anticipate our needs. They will become so common place that people will have very little use for memory. In the ten years since the iPhone launched we’ve already stopped trying to remember friends’ mobile numbers, card details and how to get from A to B without the aid of Google Maps – imagine what we’ll be like in another ten!’ Ah, we remember the good old days when we would know everyone’s house and mobile number by heart. Matty concluded that ‘AI will mean we just don’t need to use our brains to store this information at all – it will all be at our fingertips, before we even know we need it.’
Via The Debrief U.K.