discussion and reply to a peer post

Sometimes it is helpful to get an outside perspective. In yourdiscussion post, describe your selected social science issue and includetwo relevant questions that social science professionals (e.g.,psychologists, sociologists, or anthropologists) might be interested in.

In response to your peers, add a relevant question or summary thatwill support them in narrowing the investigative focus for theirtopic/issue.

To complete this assignment, review the Discussion Rubric document.

Peer 1

Good evening everyone,

The social science issue that I am proposing for investigation is “social attitudes towards artificial intelligence”.

Artificial intelligence (commonly referred to as “AI”) is essentiallythe body of work related to building “intelligence” into computers.Traditionally speaking, computers execute strict commands that areprogrammed by humans; they are essentially advanced calculators,appearing to make complex decisions, when in fact, every single decisiona computer makes is based on its human programmer. In other words,computers are great at following orders and doing math very quickly, butthey are not necessarily intelligent. How many times has your owncomputer simply “froze” or “locked-up” on you? This is your computerblindly executing commands without questioning if the commands areaccurate or may cause it to lock up.

Artificial intelligence is different. With AI, programmers are notsimply asking a computer to blindly execute commands. Instead, they areasking a computer to learn to make decisions on its own, re-programmingitself based on new information that becomes available and from thingsit has learned from the past.

You may be thinking…what does this have to do with Social Science?That would be a great question. Experts already predict that asartificial intelligence improves and evolves, it is very likely that AIwill replace many of today’s desirable and high-paying white-collarjobs. For example, even today, an AI application can search hundreds ofthousands of legal documents and records in minutes; work that wouldhave taken lawyers and their teams hundreds of hours to complete. AI hasalso been shown to be better at identifying tiny anomalies onhigh-resolution CT scans than any human doctor. (Haenlein & Kaplan,2019).

The reason I chose this social science issue is that I feel stronglythat artificial intelligence will have a dramatic impact on society overthe coming decades. Social scientists of the future will be called uponto study these impacts and propose solutions to myriad social/societalissues created by artificial intelligence.

Some example questions that a social scientist may ask today include:

• [Psychologist] Will increased interaction with artificial intelligence lead to higher rates of depression?
• [Anthropologist] Does a cultures adoption of advanced technologies affect its sense of identity?
• [Sociologist] Does the use of artificial intelligence influence acommunities trust in their local government? For example, if a city usescameras and facial recognition to search for known criminals, willregular citizens feel that their own privacy is being violated?

I’d love to hear some feedback on my choice of a social scienceissue. Do my social science questions make sense? Don’t hold back, I’dprefer honest responses so I can improve my approach, if needed.

Looking forward to the discussion.

Thanks,
Clyde

Reference:

Haenlein, M., & Kaplan, A. (2019). A Brief History of ArtificialIntelligence: On the Past, Present, and Future of ArtificialIntelligence. California Management Review, 61(4), 5–14. https://doi-org.ezproxy.snhu.edu/10.1177/0008125619864925