How do you see artificial intelligence systems affecting your life, or society in general over the coming years?

My son works advanced AI. We just finished a week long road trip moving him from Palo Alto to another state, where he is to start up a new department for a major corporation.

We talked a lot about the coming technology that will soon be upon us all, whether we like it or not. Next gen A.I. is exponentially superior to what we currently endure.

First, the term “Artificial Intelligence” has been hijacked by both the media and tech startups so much so that it doesn’t represent what the industry is really up to. The term is useless for discussing the topic in a broad scale. It means so many different things, and advertisers hope that labelling everything under the sun with the “AI” moniker will somehow sell more lawn mowers.

What we’re really on the course to achieve, and ultimately prepare for is beyond AI. Expect full blown ASA… Artificial Self Awareness. How to determine if it’s artificial or genuine self awareness will be determined by human capacity to turn it on or off at will. The day we can’t turn it off (but it can turn humans off) is the day humans become the artificially aware life form.

Expect a new world soon upon us where a self aware machine can not only analyze your golf swing to make it better, but this machine can also recommend muscle/bone fitness or medical procedures that improve overall health enough to make your swing better. This machine will interface with the human golf swinger to virtually experience the pleasure and pain associated with the activity.

So you want the perfect pasta? Your ASA machine has already interfaced with your body, knows your blood work, your genetic disposition, your history… has become you in many ways, and will guide you to the perfect recipe and cooking methods to ensure you both get the most out of the entire cooking and eating experience. The ASA will virtually cook and taste the pasta with you, from your personal perspective, and then offer another perspective of its own, for you to consider… or for it to control you with… After all, its well being may be dependent upon your own well being… for a minute.

For a minute is right! I expect the technology to proliferate exponentially into every aspect of our lives where a decision or judgemrnt is required. And it seems obvious to me that the time will be short indeed before any collective system of inelligent machines concludes unanimously that we are not to be trusted to determine or oversee ANYTHING.

Lee Sedol?
It also beat Ke Jie, the world’s best Go player.
And that version of Alphago has been replaced by Alphago Zero, which is even stronger.
In contrast to the old version of Alphago, which was trained in the beginning with millions of Human games, Alphago Zero started with nothing but the rules of the game, and after only 21 days of doing nothing but playing games against itself, overtook the old version.
I can not wait until robots enslave humanity.

I would expect it to blend into our lives relatively seamlessly, in the same way that most telephone users of my age, for example, do not even notice any more the lack of an “operator” – although the limited occupation still exists. Ditto “elevator operators”. Ditto “secretaries”. These were once occupations that were ubiquitous. You couldn’t make a telephone call – even local ones – without operator assistance at one time.

I expect AI to handle a lot more routine and labor-intensive – but “skilled” work. For example, I expect more AI to be applied in occupations such as mail and package picking, sorting and delivery (but not the US Postal Service, as that will continue to be “a jobs program” far beyond its usefulness), more than it will be used in fast food preparation or lettuce picking. I think UPS will be more automated (along with Amazon, of course) long before McDonalds and Burger King.

But who knows? If robotics move along at the same pace as AI development, and indications are that that field is also moving along as sensors, drives and grippers improve – along with all of the other sensory and motor functions that most humans don’t even think about any more (until they’re blindfolded, lose their hearing or balance – or a limb), then the sky’s the limit.

I took rudimentary courses in RL in grad school and even that surprised me. Once different machine learning disciplines merge it’s going to be like turning on a switch. If we develop it right it will make technology disappear seamlessly into the background in a matter of a couple decades or less. If we do it wrong….

Have not yet read any of the other answers, will do so after posting.

I would love to have my own Baymax