iStock photo by: ipopba
By: Emily Brosky
What is AI? Is it taking over our communication in person and through media? What will it make of itself? And overall, where is it headed? AI, standing for artificial intelligence, has been making it’s way around different platforms and tools that many of us use daily; for instance, AI has gotten a hold of medicine, transportation, retail/customer service, healthcare, and mainly Siri and Google assistant that is worldwide popular.
As AI becomes more popular, a lot of us are starting to adapt to the idea that we are not talking to real-life human beings; for generations such as Gen Z and Millenials, it can become more comforting and old news, whereas, for older generations who did not have as much experience with the media find it insulting.
As young adults, specifically within the age period of 18 to 26, our use of the media and our experience with AI has already reached more limits than other age groups; the research conducted on this topic explained that AI can lead to loneliness and is starting to decrease our human contact through reliance on technology. Even though many are against AI, a lot of reasons for it to stay around do make some issues resolved quickly; these include, speeding up the process of collecting data and analyzing it, freeing people of repetitive and “mundane” pieces of work, helping out in task automation, and helps access information quickly and efficiently.
Not only is AI becoming an influence in technology, but it is becoming an influence on social relationships and interactions as well. As AI and technology get more advanced, and have more people functioning to the online lifestyle, holding a conversation and eye contact in person is becoming fairly difficult to the younger generations, such as ourselves, young adults. The word “social isolation” is a great example of showing what technology and AI truly do to our verbally active social lives; social isolation is the “lack of social contacts and having few people to interact with regularly, as well as, feeling lonely while being around other people.”
Social relationships are based on mutual engagements that allow you to nurture someone through conversations, physical touch, or an interpersonal link. In a scholarly article, it was shown that a simple task such as nurturing someone to create an interactive bond is becoming harder and harder for the young adults in our lives to do. Not only is technology and AI fooling us into getting consumed by social isolation, but it is also fooling us into dangerous situations such as privacy risks and letting it take jobs from real-working humans.
- Don’t always trust the works of AI.
- Think about the impacts AI can have on your relationships and ask if it’s worth it.
- Move distractions away from the social interactions that are valued and really matter.
- Use technology/AI to benefit your social relationships, not allow it to take them over and control them.
As someone who grew up with an old-school family that didn’t believe in technology at a young age and is all about social interaction and the relationships that come with it, it is definitely a new experience for me to adapt to the newer versions of technology being, AI. Although AI is going to shape our technical world in the future, it can be a scary thought we all will go through as it becomes more advanced at a very fast pace. Although we will have no choice but to run with what AI gives us, it is essential to keep the life relationships we have and keep them nurtured for our own sakes; as someone who also values the true meaning of a relationship, I am in hope of AI not turning our social backgrounds for the worst.
Overall, everyone is going to have their own opinions of AI and how it is shaping our world, good or bad, since everyone will have different interactions and uses for it; it is normal to be nervous about the outcome of AI in technology and what it will do to human interaction and relationships, but, it’s also normal to feel excited as well to open up a new beginning of learning experiences, communication skills, and the future of human intelligence.
So, how will you stray away from the negative effects of Artificial Intelligence? How will you deny the effects of technology and keep your social relationships effective and humanoid? Do you think AI is a good thing to look forward to in the future or something to be afraid of for human nature’s sake?
AI is shaping the future of our world. Will it take our communication skills, relationships, and education with it?