The fear factor

Of course, with change comes challenges, and some technology advancements bring with them a sizeable fear factor. Will AI zap our creative juices? Will transportation, storage, manufacturing, wholesale, and retail jobs be at risk? Are we destined to walk around the earth surrounded by robots? We remain optimistic.
“AI as a technique will become even more ubiquitous than it is right now,” Lars says. “AI is a tool for humans. And just as the steam engine, or motor-powered flight, or electricity, or the internet have not taken away our humanity, I don’t believe AI will take it away, either.”
Indeed, these technological benefits often outweigh the downsides. Daya notes that throughout the last 200-300 years, technological improvements have brought disruption, but, ultimately, these advancements created paths to other inventions and opportunities.
“The analogy I think of is the washing machine. You don’t hear anyone complaining that they can’t wash clothes by hand anymore,” Daya says. “AI does create a more efficient and productive workflow and it might displace temporarily — it might be a mismatch of the talent or the skill — but, over the longer term, it improves the conditions generally so you can engage in more productive work.”
Interwoven in current AI advancements is the need to monitor ethics and eliminate bias. Adobe, for one, is focused on creating development requirements and oversight for engineers working on AI through a data ethics group.
“We are looking at ethics and bias, making sure we don’t introduce bias into our machine-learning models as a cornerstone of how we will develop AI applications,” Daya says.
Read more about Adobe’s take on bias, ethics, and diversity in AI.


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