Be The Light
Be The Light

The Ethics of AI

March 10, 2021
Artificial Intelligence can transform every industry in the world by leveraging its powerful capabilities in innovative ways. Large companies like Amazon have already begun to utilize AI-powered robots to make their shipping warehouses more efficient. Industries like hospitality and finance use AI-powered technology such as chatbots to help bring better service to their customers. AI’s analytical capabilities make it easier to process and draw insight from large amounts of data than ever before, allowing companies to use the data they collect more effectively. With any advancement in technology, there will be concerns about the ethicality of the existence and deployment of said technology. To date, there are not many policies in place to regulate how Artificial Intelligence is used. As it becomes more integrated into our everyday lives, its ethical use has become a point of concern for technology ethicists everywhere. When we think about the ethics of AI, we must consider robot rights, human rights and dignity, and transparency and accountability, among other things.

Robot Rights

Most of us are familiar with the Hollywood trope of the sentient AI coming into conflict with humanity (think The Terminator or I, Robot). It’s a question that society has had for a while now: “What rights are a sentient being, be it an artificial one, entitled to in the human world?” For the most part, AI is not yet capable of forming thoughts independent of human influence, but technology is ever progressing, and it may one day be possible to build an AI that functions and thinks as a whole human does. In that scenario, AI would cease to be just a tool for us to use, and questions about its obligation to serve humanity would be inevitable. If we believe in the philosophy of “sentientism,” then we must grant consideration towards robot rights as we do towards the rights of humans and non-human animals. Many believe that producing an AI capable of human sentience is dangerous and immoral for both humanity and the machine, putting an undue burden on both. As we advance our technology, we must be mindful of its impact on society and the technology itself.

Human Rights and Dignity

AI has allowed many industries to innovate the way they do business, producing more and spending less. In many industries, robots are even replacing human labor, and AI is being used to monitor work progress and outcomes. Though AI can certainly allow businesses to operate more efficiently, its adoption into standard business practices should not be taken lightly, particularly when it comes to its impact on human labor. There are many people whose jobs have been affected by the implementation of new technology. This is nothing new. Technology will inevitably change industries. The concern comes in when entire industries become obsolete, and thousands if not millions of people are with no alternatives. As we advance as a society, we also must mitigate potential risks to human rights and dignity. It may be inevitable that many industries will soon become mostly or entirely automated. In that case, it is crucial that the human beings put out of work are still taken care of and receive stable jobs. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness mean living with dignity. It means no human is obsolete.

Transparency and Accountability

An AI-powered machine can be programmed to process data much faster and with far less error than a human being, making it a valuable data collection and evaluation tool. The data can be leveraged to make better business decisions and create better customer service. It can also be used to advance research and medicine. But it should concern us that there is not much regulation on the type of information companies can collect on us, nor is there much policy around transparency and disclosure of the algorithms utilized to collect data on us. Just as AI can be used innovatively, it can also be used in biased and even destructive ways. There have already been cases of AI bias that have been brought to light in recent years. For example, Amazon terminated the use of their AI recruiting tool after it was discovered that the tool had been programmed in a way that favored white men over people of color and women, even if all groups possessed identical skillsets. The public has a right to know just how the algorithms work. Though some believe AI could help us push beyond societal bias, it is clear that human biases still greatly influence our technology. AI can be used to incite anger and resentment in specific populations or fear and discouragement in others, making it dangerous if left unchecked. AI-powered bots have already influenced politics on popular social media sites. We as a society should make sure this technology is not used for nefarious purposes. This means full transparency around creating new AI-powered systems and holding companies accountable for the way the technology is used on their platforms.

So How do We Use AI Ethically?

The field of artificial intelligence is still very new, and its capabilities are innumerous. Companies that wish to utilize AI in their business practices must use an ethical framework. For example, companies dealing with personal data usually have an ethics board to mitigate risk and ensure that the company is adhering to the standards set by the company and the government. Companies can expand this resource to create a framework that centers on ethical AI and the importance of compliance with privacy laws and ethical behavior when using that technology. An ethics board can help set the tone for the company to behave in both legal and ethical manners when utilizing AI. The ethical framework that businesses use should be tailored to the industry they occupy to detect better the specific issues that each sector faces when using the technology. Companies can also look for inspiration in industries that have, for the most part, implemented and followed through with the ethical standards that they set for themselves.

Maria is a writer at Enki Tech, a Downtown Santa Monica technology company that specializes in the development of high-quality, user friendly software, web platforms and mobile apps.

How to Network During a Pandemic

February 24, 2021
It is 2021, a new year. But there is one thing that is still the same: we are in a global pandemic. The coronavirus pandemic is far from being over, but there does appear to be hope on the horizon. Many companies have now released effective vaccines, and populations worldwide are beginning to get their first doses of them. However, we will likely have to adhere to strict public health guidelines for the time being. This includes social distancing, wearing masks, staying six feet apart in public, etc. Despite the abnormality of a pandemic, there are still everyday things that we all need to do that can’t always be put on hold, such as job hunting or networking. So how do we do these things safely?

Use the Time you Have to Master a New Skill

The global pandemic has forced us to spend less time outside and more time indoors to keep ourselves and each other safe. Staying home for such long periods can feel monotonous, but there are ways in which you can use this time to your advantage. With the extra time, we all have, now is the perfect time to enroll in an online course to help build new skills or polish old ones. If you need a job, which many of us are, fostering a new skill set can help you get a step closer to getting one. Many digital platforms cater to online learning and allow you to receive certifications upon completion. There are also free platforms like YouTube that contain a wealth of knowledgeable people creating free educational content such as mastering a new programming language.

Zoom Zoom Zoom!

We may not be able to meet in person, but that doesn’t mean that we can’t stay connected. The internet is an incredible tool that allows us to do just that. In addition, the internet’s capabilities can also be used to help you network as well. For example, Zoom is a video conferencing platform that allows users to set up virtual conference rooms. Many companies have turned to Zoom to conduct job interviews and stay connected to their staff. If you aren’t using Zoom already to connect with others professionally, now is a great time to start.

Polish your Social Media

As stated earlier, we all have a lot more time on our hands than before. One way you can use this time is to update your social media accounts. LinkedIn is the most popular social media site that recruiters use to find potential employees. Creating or polishing an existing LinkedIn account can help you appeal to potential employers and recruiters. Make sure that your profile is up to date with your current and past employment statuses. You can also utilize it to expound upon your employment experience and what you can bring to the table.

Maria is a writer at Enki Tech, a Downtown Santa Monica technology company that specializes in the development of high-quality, user friendly software, web platforms and mobile apps.

Global AI Conferences Q1 2021

February 10, 2021
Over the last two decades, Artificial Intelligence has allowed us to digitize tasks normally reserved for human beings. Businesses, governments, and other organizations have recognized the benefit of this technology as they continue to integrate it into their everyday practices. Over the next year, there will be many conferences discussing the merit of this technology as well as its benefits and drawbacks. Below is a list of some of this year’s conferences to checkout.

AI in Payments & Fraud Risk Management (Europe) Summit – January 28 to 29, 2021

Deep Learning 2.0 Virtual Summit – January 28 to 29, 2021

AAAI Conference on Artificial intelligence – February 2 to 9, 2021

Data Science Virtual Salon | Healthcare, Finance & Technology – February 16 to 17, 2021

AIBC Summit – Malta – February 17 to 18, 2021

Global Artificial Intelligence Virtual Bootcamp – February 22 to 26, 2021

Ai4 2021 Finance Summit – March 3 to 4, 2021

AI For Human Language – March 5, 2021

ACM/IEEE International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction – March 8 to 11, 2021

ALT 2021 – Algorithmic Learning Theory – March 16 to 19, 2021

Videos

Maria is a writer at Enki Tech, a Downtown Santa Monica technology company that specializes in the development of high-quality, user friendly software, web platforms and mobile apps.

Can Artificial Intelligence Transform the Travel Industry?

December 18, 2020
Artificial Intelligence is an emerging field of technology with the capability of making our lives easier in many ways. When broken down to its simplest definition, AI is the programming of machines to conduct tasks that typically require human intelligence. We can already see how Artificial Intelligence has been seamlessly integrated into our lives and businesses. For example, AI has been used to simplify data analysis and management, allowing companies to process the plethora of data they are deluged within seconds. And in recent years, technologists and computer scientists have begun to program AI with the ability to perform even more complex tasks, making AI a valuable asset for a business. Amongst those looking to benefit from this technology are business leaders in the travel industry.

The Travel Industry and COVID-19

The global travel and tourism industry is estimated to be worth around $2.9 trillion (2019). Travel has become more accessible to everyday people over the past few decades. The ability to travel and visit different countries has gone from a luxury saved for the very privileged few to an activity that more and more people can enjoy as airfare and lodging have become cheaper and more accessible. Many communities have also built their local economies on travel, with tourism being a significant source of income for them. The United States alone contributed approximately $580.7 billion to global tourism’s GDP. But like many industries in the year 2020, traveling and tourism took a nosedive due to a worldwide pandemic.

Traveling and COVID-19

The global COVID-19 pandemic has put a dent in many of our plans for 2020. The novel coronavirus or COVID-19 is a particularly contagious virus that is around ten times deadlier than the flu. The long-term effects that the virus will have on the health of those who have caught it is yet unknown, but many who have caught it and ‘survived’ have reported long-term lung, brain, and heart conditions, among other things. To combat the virus and stop the spread, almost every country on earth has restricted travel to their regions. And within each country, there are varying degrees of quarantine taking place to reduce the number of people exposed to the coronavirus from increasing. As a result, many industries took a great economic hit because of this and the global travel and tourism industry was hit particularly hard. Without a vaccine for COVID-19, traveling is risky. Airlines have had to reduce the number of people allowed to board flights to fight the spread. Hotels have also been advised to reduce the capacity to fill their buildings to ensure proper distance is being kept between customers.

But hope is on the horizon as several vaccines have entered their final testing phases and could be widely distributed as soon as the end of 2020. If the vaccines prove effective and enough of us receive them, we can significantly reduce the number of COVID-19 infections globally. Furthermore, once COVID-19 is under control, the travel and tourism industry will likely experience a boom as people globally look to leave their homes and explore the world again. If this is the case, Artificial Intelligence may help make travel and tourism easier, affordable, and profitable.

AI and Travel and Tourism

AI intelligence can greatly benefit the travel and tourism industry by helping automate and streamline tasks traditionally done by humans and reducing the amount of human error that occurs with these tasks. By automating work and simplifying the process, businesses can save money and utilize their freed-up time to make traveling more accessible and more convenient.

Customer service within the travel and tourism industry has been vastly improved since its introduction. Hotels, airlines, and automobile services regularly deal with many customers every day, and it can be hard to deliver the best customer service when employees are swamped with work. With the advent of social media and instant messaging, customers are even more eager to receive quick and satisfactory information in shorter and shorter time frames. While a single human can’t field hundreds of thousands of customer questions instantly, it is an easy task for a chatbot. Chatbots are AI-powered machines commonly used by many businesses to improve customer service by providing quick and accessible knowledge to customers’ frequently asked questions. A chatbot can be programmed to learn customer habits by analyzing common patterns in humans when using an app or website or when on social media. With the information the chatbot collects, it can learn to give answers to frequently asked questions.

AI can also be used to improve face-to-face interaction as well. Like a chatbot that can be accessed through social media or an app and utilized to answer customer questions, it is possible to build a robot to do the same tasks in person. For hotel operators and tourism agencies, a robotic helper could help reduce the workload on employees, allowing employees to focus more on quality regarding the customer service they provide. A robot can be programmed to understand speech, recognize specific questions, and deliver accurate information to these questions in response. Though we are still awaze away from having fully automated hotels, AI-powered robots that accompany and help receptionists are already here. The Hilton has already deployed such kinds of robots with its pilot program that it has started with IBM.

Data analysis and predictive analytics are essential tools for businesses looking to provide better services and save money. For the travel industry, AI has helped to make these processes a whole lot easier. Institutions like hotels, airlines, and car rental services rely on customer feedback to improve their services, so they often utilize tools like surveys to get a feel for where their customers are. As these institutions deal with hundreds of thousands of customers every day, it would be pretty impossible for a human being alone to process all the data they collect on their customers daily. AI is utilized to quickly analyze customer behavior and offer predictions about the market and future customer behavior and choices based on their information. With more data being processed every second, businesses can more accurately address their issues and provide innovative solutions to problems.

AI is not meant to replace human judgment but rather become another tool that we can use to improve our lives and our business operations. Only time will tell how these machines will improve the tourist experience, but the future looks promising.

The Positive Impact of Google

December 11, 2020
It is hard to imagine a world without Google. Thanks to Google’s search engine, we can know more than ever before, and most information we need is easy to access online. Of course, Google is neither the first nor the only online search engine available for us to use, but it is one of the best and by far the most popular. But what makes Google’s search engine so great?

Google is Fast in its Delivery

Part of what makes an excellent online search engine is its ability to deliver relevant information as fast as possible. Google can provide the fastest results because they have perfected their hardware to do so. In under a second, one can find information on almost anything they can think of by simply “Googling” it. Google takes particular caution to make sure that its infrastructure is always working so that no matter the circumstances, we can still rely on Google as a premium search engine.

Google Houses A LOT of Information

Google is the fastest and most accurate search engine in the world. This is because Google’s database is vast! Every day Google processes about 20 petabytes of data from the billions of searches conducted on it. Using that data, they utilize machine learning technology to deliver the most meaningful results to their audience. Google also takes its time to update its hardware to store more and more information to provide new info to its users regularly.

Using Data, Google Stays Relevant

Sometimes it feels like Google already knows what I want to search for, even before typing my request into the search engine. However, Google also uses the plethora of data it collects and stores to remain relevant to its users. Using machine learning and predictive analytics, they can understand their user’s patterns and behavior and more accurately deliver the content they crave.

Google Succeeded in Branding Itself

Part of the success of Google’s search engine was their ability to brand themselves as the search engine that everyone wants to use. Many search engines like Yahoo and Bing work reasonably well, but they never come to mind when searching for something. However, unlike the competition, Google made itself be known not just by providing excellent service; they also advertised that they were a great service. From billboards to commercials featuring celebrities, Google made a name for itself as a brand.

Positive Impact of Google’s Search Engine

With Accurate and relevant information available to us at the click of a button, Google’s search engine has made information and learning much more accessible. What used to be reserved for those privileged enough to have academic work available is now available to everyone. When used properly, a search engine like Google’s makes gaining knowledge and spreading knowledge simple and easy. All one needs is a device capable of accessing the internet, and with smart technology more readily available, almost everyone can use Google.

BE THE LIGHT!

Plan your new project or tech strategy to help secure your business
future in a rapidly changing business environment.

info@enki.tech

ENKI Inc.

100 Wilshire Blvd, Santa Monica, CA 90401

(213) 814-2332

ENKI Inc. © 2015 – 2023. All rights reserved.
contact-section