AI For Good: Entering An Exciting New Era

Let’s face it: AI can be scary.

Doomsday thoughts of The Terminator and end-of-humanity robot uprisings are often associated with progressions in AI technology for those without a solid understanding of how machine learning works, and algorithm biases and problematic responses might cause even the fiercest supporters of AI to hesitate. How do we put our faith in technology that has proven to backfire? What if we create something we can’t control?

The good news is that the robot apocalypse isn’t coming. Not anytime soon, at least.

In fact, while it’s easy to focus on the negative aspects of AI, it has allowed us as a society to surpass even our own expectations for technological development. There are countless ways AI benefits us in our everyday lives, from giving us directions to get to work to writing down our shopping lists as we speak them aloud. AI can recommend playlists for our morning routines and show us the funniest TikToks for us to send to our friends. And on top of the small day-to-day conveniences AI provides, researchers are also making large, overarching strides with AI systems in healthcare, security, and education.

The University of Waterloo can attest to this. In a recent study headed by engineering professor Dr. Kerstin Dautenhahn, research showed that social robots can be used in K-12 classroom settings to assist children with learning disabilities, giving them more one-on-one attention than an instructor can. Using goal-setting and self-regulating strategies, the social robot (nicknamed QT), managed to keep the students engaged and focused on their learning, despite the obstacles caused by their learning disabilities. Dautenhahn even discovered that the students assigned to QT “were generally more engaged with their tasks” than the students assigned to work with a human instructor. This study opens us up to the fascinating possibility of how AI can not only help in hard science situations like healthcare and biotechnology but also in education as well.

As AI becomes more and more mainstream across our society, STEM professions aren’t the only ones that will benefit. Businesses and marketers, in particular, have a whole host of incoming opportunities; ways to strategize their operations and find more efficient ways to interact with customers, promote products, and facilitate sales. There’s no doubt that we are entering an era in which consumers will be understood unlike ever before and in turn, businesses will adapt to their most effective iterations of themselves. Much like the movies and television say, we are crossing into uncharted territory. But unlike the flashy images of robots ruling over humans, there’s no reason to be afraid. The possibilities for AI marketing are endless, and what an exciting place to be!