'I disagree with Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk and heres why'

Youve all seen the films and heard the prognostications of people like Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk. They portray artificial intelligence (AI) as something humans should fear. They argue that this kind of technology is driving us apart, and worse yet, that it will lead to some sort of conflict even an existential threat to our society.

However, as someone who works with AI every day and who sees how it is helping businesses and consumers across the service sector, I am going to have to disagree with Professor Hawking and Mr. Musk and heres why.

Did you know that the airplane flying you home for the holidays uses an AI system that has made commercial aviation safer than ever before?

Not flying home? Driving? Well, you can thank sophisticated robots, trained by expert car builders, for your carefree drive home.

>See also:How artificial intelligence will make humans smarter

What about those financial earnings reports, sports recaps or stock profiles you peer over every morning? Have you ever wondered how news publications get stories out so quickly? Well, some of those reports you are reading are actually written by robots.

So, AI systems are more intertwined with our everyday life than many may believe. These systems make our travel safer and keep us more informed about the world around us. But how is this technology bringing us closer together?

Far from excluding humans, AI systems augment our reasoning capacities and empower us to make more informed real-time decisions.

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Get smart: how smart machines are bringing us closer together