Advantages & Disadvantages of AI: Updated Guide 2024

Artificial intelligence as a technological domain is gaining widespread popularity in recent years. This sudden and nearly exponential growth in its application and advancements has also forced its users and the society to take a step back and reflect upon its advantages as well as potential threats it can pose to the society at a larger level. While many tech-experts and professionals discuss the advantages and plausible contributions of AI at length, many thinkers and users have expressed their concern about the possible negative impact that the boom of AI entails for society. 

In this blog, we have delved into the various perceived benefits and risks associated with the widespread usage of artificial intelligence programs and models.  

What is Artificial Intelligence? Key Domains of AI to Know About

The domain of artificial intelligence is a part of the discipline of information technology (IT) and computer sciences and is concerned with the development of softwares and models that can behave and perform functions as closely as possible to humans. The major idea behind artificial intelligence is to develop systems and softwares that render machines capable of mimicking human intelligence. Artificial intelligence or AI models are programmed with capacities for perception, learning, reasoning, conversation as well as analysis. You May Interested | Executive Program Online In AI and Machine Learning!

Although the historical traces of research in AI can be traced back to the development of the Turing test by Alan Turing in 1960, the major thrust in AI development and advancement has come forth in the current decade with the launch of advanced AI models that can simulate human intelligence and can also be integrated into a number of other softwares to provide artificially intelligent features. 

Based upon how advanced a given AI model is, three major types of AI can be identified in the current field of technology: 

• Weak AI: Commonly known as “Narrow AI”, weak AI models and technologies focus on performing a niche arena/type of tasks. Weak AI models are equipped to perform one task at one point of time, thus limiting the scope for multitasking. Considering that such models are focused upon a specific domain of tasks, they often have certain limitations and cannot outperform beyond those limitations. 

• Strong AI: Strong AI is also called “General AI” and is created to perform a wide repertoire of tasks similar to humans. It is trained and programmed to function beyond fixed levels of training to excel in a variety of tasks. It can learn and function beyond its initial limitations by active learning and training. 

• Super AI: Super AI is a conceptual vision of AI models and softwares that are trained to outperform human intelligence and actions in all activities and are highly skilled in a vast variety of tasks. Such AI models have not been formulated on a widespread basis as of yet and hence are a conceptual vision for the future of AI. 

Artificial intelligence (AI) is focused on multiple technologies including machine learning, deep learning, data mining, data algorithms, natural language processing etc. You May Interested | IIM Online Certificate In Data Science and Analytics!

Latest Facts and Figures about AI (Artificial Intelligence)

Before diving deeper into the advantages and disadvantages associated with artificial intelligence and its usage, here we have corroborated a few of the statistical facts and figures that shed light upon the contributions of AI, its scope, its development and its stipulated growth in the future. 

• The presence of artificially intelligent features are more common than users realise, as data indicates that nearly 77% of electronic gadgets and devices have integrated AI features for better performance.
• Nearly 84% of C-Level executives trust AI features and believe AI can be a major aspect to leverage in coming years for growth maximisation. 
• AI-powered tools have been found to contribute to over 40% of enhancements in the productivity of employees at organisations 
• Nearly 41% of consumers of AI-powered services from India, China, Western Europe and the United States of America deem AI as a useful technology for enhancing life quality. 
• Ever since 2000, the growth rate that AI startups have witnessed is nearly 14 times, and the contributions of AI is predicted to touch nearly 13-26% by 2030. 

Major Advantages and Benefits [Pros] of AI (Artificial Intelligence)

Herein, we shall delve into some of the major benefits associated with AI technology that have been acknowledged by experts and users on a widespread basis. 

1) Advanced Support and Assistance

One of the prime benefits associated with AI technologies that have led to their widespread popularity are the vast array of support and assistance features they provide. AI is an advanced IT domain that helps the models to function integratively with various electronic devices and gadgets to provide virtual assistance to users. Siri, Alexa, Google Assistant etc. are a few of the virtual AI powered assistants. 

In this regard, AI technologies help to automate a large number of tasks and provide hands-on services in performing digital functions for users on a day-to-day basis. It is hence a very useful service feature for users, an aspect certainly contributing to the merits of AI.

2) Round the Clock Availability

Human services or assistance on a task are not available on a 24x7 basis but the utility of AI that makes it a strong contender in this regard is the round-the-clock availability of the services. Being a computerised service feature, it can be accessed at any time, flexibly from any location (unless there is a specific stationary AI-powered device) as the user requires, which makes it a strong contender for the pathbreaking technological advancements of the future. 

3) Accuracy in Performing Repetitive Tasks

While the AI models being developed are not entirely free from biases or producing erroneous results, one of the major advantages of AI is the relatively error-free results it is capable of producing on repetitive and objective tasks. When humans work on monotonous or repetitive tasks on a prolonged basis, they are prone to conducting errors. Additionally, the quality of outputs produced on repetitive tasks may deteriorate with prolonged engagement in the case of humans. 

However AI technologies, being mechanised models, are adept at handling such tasks with relatively higher accuracy as compared to humans. Since AI technologies can handle repetitive and monotonous tasks quite effectively, it can allow humans to focus their attention on a number of creative tasks requiring divergent thinking and ideation, an aspect in which AI has not yet been able to garner prowess. 

4) Cost Reduction at Organisational Levels

In the recent past, a large number of job roles and responsibilities have turned redundant owing to the mechanisation and industrialisation of various professional sectors and industries, especially those involving manual labour. With the advent of AI, a large domain of tasks requiring intellectual competence have also turned obsolete as these tasks and roles can be conveniently performed by AI softwares and programs. Such developments have contributed largely to the cost reduction and increased efficiency for organisations, as equally efficient results and outputs can be produced through AI-powered ventures with lowered costs, both monetary and with respect to pace and accuracy of output generation. This strength of AI has contributed significantly to its widespread popularity in professional ventures. 

5) Significant Contributions to Everyday Life

Various AI-powered features and programs are present in our day to day lives on a conspicuous and often inconspicuous basis, easing out tasks for us and assisting in various domains of life. The pervasiveness of AI in one’s everyday life is often under-noticed, but their programs, especially narrow AI programs, are often integrated in our electronic devices and various applications. Whether it be personalised and customised services in online shopping and social media, the virtual assistants in our mobile devices or the travelling applications providing syncing services, AI features are integrated into the services of these applications. 

Thus, not only are AI-powered services highly omnipresent around us in our electronic services and applications, their offering often make our life seamless and hassle-free, providing personalised services best-suited to individual users’ needs.  

6) Big Data Acquisition and Analysis Capacities

While the capacity of humans to understand and analyse vast amounts of data meaningfully is limited, machines equipped with advanced AI features are well-trained to perform such tasks. Machine learning, deep learning and data mining features in AI softwares and models render them capable of not only analysing vast datasets accurately, but also help them to draw meaningful conclusions from it as per user needs. Furthermore, since AI models are trained in analysis, they are also well-equipped to analyse datasets to carry out advanced complex tasks and functions. 

7) Risk Mitigation to Humans 

In many cases, the advanced technologies powered with AI enable humans to safely navigate high-risk discoveries and operations without manually visiting or engaging with high-risk tasks. Some of the pertinent examples of this include the use of AI-powered robots to perform experiments in radioactive zones, carry out rescue operations in high-risk situations or even navigate high-depth areas in seas and explore marine life. 

Such abilities of AI technologies to mitigate risks involved to humans make them an irreplaceable and certainly indispensable asset that needs to be leveraged further upon in the future to further humankind’s interests, growth and progress. 

8) Enhanced Productivity of Individuals

The impact that AI technologies create on human productivity and functioning is two-pronged. Firstly, the various AI technologies available in current times can be used effectively to assist in daily motivation-building and maintaining one’s productivity. 

Chatbots like Chat GPT and Google Bard as well as AI-enabled daily planners can be especially useful for students and professionals to effectively plan their activities and tasks as well as schedule their daily engagements to dedicate attention to their commitments. Furthermore, many of the smart virtual planners equipped with AI-features provide the user with informational support and daily reminders to effectively manage their engagements and tasks, helping them maximise on their productivity. 

The second pathway for AI to contribute to the user’s productivity is by efficiently managing and completing repetitive and simplistic tasks, thus allowing for more time to take on creative tasks and contribute meaningfully to complex tasks and breakthroughs. 

9) mplications for Employment Scope

As the domain of artificial intelligence is widening and diversifying, a larger number of career domains and job roles are opening up in the discipline of IT. This has not only attracted a number of technology enthusiast and proficient executives to take up formal education in AI, it has also provided a domain for employment and career development which is lucrative and prosperous in terms of future outlooks. 

Thus, while the advancements made in AI technology have been critiqued on grounds of affecting human employability, it has simultaneously also created a job avenue for technological professionals to develop a successful career into. 

10) Significant Breakthroughs in Society

Another major area to which AI has been envisioned as contributing in the near future includes the major breakthroughs and discoveries it can make in widespread fields ranging from medicine and healthcare to engineering, designing and physics. The implications of the combination of advanced machine learning, artificial intelligence and robotics is expected to transform the future of technology and its role in the advancement of society. 

Thus, as can be seen, in many respects, AI has already made invaluable and indispensable contributions to the life of humans. Moreover, its scope for development in the future seems prosperous, which brings along a number of  prospects for improvement and betterment of humankind. 

Major Disadvantages [Cons] of AI (Artificial Intelligence)

In so far, a number of reflections on the benefits associated with AI and its future prospects indicate that it can indeed create a valuable place for itself pervading various arenas of human life. However, there have been a number of criticisms raised against such proliferation of AI tools and softwares and their usage across domains. 

Herein, we have delved upon a few of the critical disadvantages and negative implications that AI has or can potentially pose in the future for humans. 

1) Implications for User Safety and Privacy 

One of the primary demerits and potential risks associated with AI tools and services are the possibilities of data breach, data theft or breach of privacy of users while using such applications. In many cases, AI-equipped applications and softwares are equipped with smart tracking features that can track user activities across devices, their choices and preferences etc. that can pose a threat to their privacy and cybersafety. Moreover, critics have pointed out how such data breaches can be utilised potentially by data analytical giants or companies for profiteering and personal fulfillments. Another major associated safety issue in the case of AI is the indiscriminate use by users lacking digital literacy, which leaves them vulnerable to exposing confidential and discreet personal information on the internet or AI platforms. Both of these issues make AI technologies quite risky for users’ privacy and cybersecurity. 

2) Vulnerable to Errors

While advanced AI models are being developed to accurately perform tasks and functions, the current versions of such models and softwares are not free of their limitations. Weak AI models in specific, are designed with certain inherent limitations, which leave them vulnerable to committing errors in the tasks they perform. Similarly, AI-powered chatbots and similar tools fed with extensive datasets often become dated and consequently redundant in a short span of time due to rapid advancements and data being produced. For example, Chat GPT users are privy to the model’s limited efficiency in producing accurate factual information and its inability to provide accurate outputs for queries related to events after December 2022 (the month of its creation). 

Similarly, although AI models are equipped with ML-technologies to closely mimic human intelligence, they are still likely to commit occasional fallacies and erroneous results (quite similar to human intelligence indeed!). This is a significant demerit of AI tools. 

3) Expensive and Time-Consuming Development 

Another logistic criticism of AI tools is that their creation and development is a cumbersome process, both with respect to the monetary investments needed in the course as well as time expended on creation of advanced models. While the return on investment for AI models are certainly high, the creation of the models require a vast investment of time, effort and resources, which may be unfeasible for organisations to expend on a regular basis. 

4) Prone to Suggestibility

Considering that AI models are yet to make vast strides to grasp the entirety of human intelligence and mimic it, it exhibits one of the key fallacies that can impact its accuracy, it is often highly suggestible. This is especially the case with AI-powered chatbots that are designed to mimic human conversation–the suggestibility from the user can often affect the outputs of the bot. In certain cases, such suggestions from the user can be used to manipulate the bot in providing manipulated or erroneous results, divulge inappropriate or risky information or even provide unreliable and varying results based on the suggestions of the user. 

5) Lack of Emotionality or Creativity

A major limitation of AI is that it has yet not been well-equipped to express emotionality or creative skills like humans. Although strides are being made in AI technology to perform complex analysis, learning and critical reasoning, it has still not mastered the skills of creative thought or prowess, which can limit its utility in a number of innovative tasks and domains. 

Similarly, while AI technologies and tools are being deployed widespread in automating various professional roles, the nature of organisational binding, team spirit and identity, which have emotional capabilities at their base, cannot be recreated through the use of artificially intelligent machines. Neither can chatbots or other AI softwares mimic the conversational essence of humans which is often undertoned with emotional expressions. 

6) Lack of Nuanced Ethical or Moral Reasoning

One of the gravest implications and demerits raised about AI is the lack of a moral or ethical ground for a machine or computer software. A large number of critics have pointed out this demerit of an aI tool to imply the risks it poses for the digital safety of users and the society at large with respect to the risky information that AI tools and bots can reveal to users indiscriminately. 

However, contemporary AI model creators and developers are adding nuanced codes and training modules that allow the models to critically identify inappropriate enquiries as well as unsafe and hazardous information to bar such queries/inputs. Firewalls and safety evaluations are being programmed into various AI tools and systems to uphold the safety of users and mitigate risks associated with AI functions.

7) In-Grained Biases

A few users and experts have criticised the scope of AI models and tools by highlighting that although a machine/software is trained to be inherently objective and accurate, the developers creating the models can program datasets that can inherently be biased or reflective of inaccurate differences between groups on a variety of basis. When a neutral and emotionless machine software reads and analyses such a database, it can draw conclusions and deliver outputs which might be inherently biased towards or against certain populations. While this is a subtle demerit of AI softwares, its implications can be massive for society if not attended to. 

8) Implications for Self-Reliance and Human Intelligence 

The seamless services and assistance that AI tools and softwares can provide can turn into an overdependent use pattern quite soon if not utilised discriminately. For instance, among students or younger users, the use of AI technologies can hinder their creative and independent thought and generate a lazy or over-reliant approach towards AI tools which can assist the user in a number of ways. This can consequently bear implications for the development of intelligence as a prolonged effect as such overdependence can impact creative thought, divergent thinking and problem-solving in the user. 

9) Impact on Human Employability 

One of the key areas where the role of AI has harboured negative impacts is the employability of humans. While the diversification and expansion of AI as a domain has certainly created various job roles resulting in a prosperous career scope, it has impacted the need for human intelligence for work in a vast number of roles, which have been rendered redundant due to the effectiveness of AI tools in performing them. Further concerns have now been raised about the future of the value of human skills considering the advancements that AI can make toward outperforming humans on a number of higher order tasks. 

10) Implications for Legal and Regulatory Frameworks

While not a demerit of AI per se, but one of the potentially risky implications of the growth of AI technologies is the rapid development of newer technologies and tools without due accompanying legal and regulatory guidelines for use. Such rapid advancements without the development of needed regulatory frameworks can leave such tools vulnerable to indiscriminate and inappropriate use by certain users.

Education in AI: Top Courses to Know About in 2024

When evaluating the costs and benefits that a major driving force such as artificial intelligence brings into the landscape of technology, its role for providing a vast and developing domain of exploration is uncontestable. Thus, many students and professionals enthusiastic about exploring technological fields are quite interested in Artificial Intelligence. In addition to scope of development, the career scope of AI is also lucrative due to the handsome compensations provided in such a field. 

But developing a career specifically in AI also requires formal education in the field, for which a number of undergraduate and postgraduate offerings are now available for students (and professionals) to choose from. Such courses, available in the form of degrees, diplomas and certifications provide the chance to learners to select courses that best suit their unique academic needs and aspirations. Mentioned below are a few such courses offered in India in the regular and online learning modes. 

Concluding Key: Is AI Worth It for the Future?

On a note of conclusion, considering all the various benefits and the potential negative impacts AI can incur facilitates a holistic perspective taking about the entire discourse around AI and its future. However, the widening of AI technologies is a development that has already taken traction and can unquestionably contribute to the betterment of society on a number of levels. 

But the key consideration that becomes crucial at this point is to identify the limits of artificial intelligence and the irreplaceable strengths of human intelligence, so that both can be put to best use and the contributions of human intelligence can be further leveraged upon to further humankind’s growth and progress.

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