Gigi, Pixie and ChatGPT – are you familiar with them?

They are the chat bots of GCash, Shopee and OpenAI, respectively.

You may not be familiar of their names, but you surely have communicated with them whenever you had queries, complaints and rants.

You send them messages and patiently wait for their responses as if waiting for a friend’s reply to an important message.

When you do not acquire what you expect from these, you get furious. Consequently, you provide a low rating to these chat bots.

On the other hand, if these satisfied your queries, you continuously utilize them.

These AIs are what dominate digital platforms; however, are they more of friends or foes?

Artificial Intelligence, popularly known as AI, is a technology allowing a computer program to learn, reason and act on its own.

It takes the form of machines that act normally as humans do.

In 1950, Alan Turing, a British polymath, expressed how humans are capable of problem solving and decision making.

From here, he conceptualized the idea that if humans are able to process available information with these skills, then machines can surely do the same.

This is where the idea of Artificial Intelligence came from.

In the 20th century, this concept appeared through sci-fi movies particularly in the ‘heartless’ Tin Man from The Wizard of Oz.

Various movies followed showing artificially intelligent robots.

Who would forget the Bicentennial Man in 1999 starred by Robin Williams?

These sparked more studies and exploration from scientists.

Further studies were stimulated when the digital platforms worked significantly during the pandemic, when quarantines took place and less human contact emerged.

This even paved the way to data gathering and processing done through chat bot in various digital applications.

Since data collection, processing and analytics have been too much of a job for humans, AIs had made the job easy.

This raised the concern about whether Artificial Intelligence could really be an aid to humans or would replace humans.

Though AI is highly accurate and reduces human error, its existence develops human dependence on it.

Humans relying on AI taking over their tasks will only effect more expensive funding from businesses.

Training models require GPUs that are extremely costly, and their maintenance call for software and hardware resources.

The worst thing is that since AI can process big data, unemployment is at the brink of emergence.

AI can perform multiple tasks that a human cannot.

Using dataset, AI can reveal trends faster than humans.

This ability make AI more suitable for decision-making.

Moreover, AI can acquire data and information faster and even without breaks compared to humans.

These may be great advantages for AIs, but how about their emotional abilities?

Though it is true that they can address customer needs through chat services responding to customer queries, AIs lack the emotional capability which is a key factor in sales.

Additionally, since AIs predict through algorithms, they lack the creativity and innovativeness particularly when faced with challenging situations.

It may be true that AI provides great opportunities for business industries to achieve full function and implementation; however, a wider perspective should be viewed where humans should still be at the forefront of this development.

Humans should still be at the vanguard of mobilizing and implementing this discovery in a way that no humans will be jeopardized.

The pros and cons of this invention should clearly be put to light.

Whether it is a friend or a foe, the bottom line is always on how this would maintain human race amid progress.