Is AI Right or Wrong for Humanity?
By Tsz Yin Chan
Over many decades, our technology and industries have developed a lot. Artificial
Intelligence, also known as AI, is one of the most important and impressive creations in human
history. AI technology has been used to optimize and improve our life. But lately, people seem to
become more against the rise of AI technology. Why? AI technology has been optimizing and
improving our life, why would people be against it? Are they afraid of AI replacing humans?
In September 2023, in New York City where I am living in, the New York Police
Department unveiled an AI robot called K5. The New York Police Department stated that the
purpose of K5 is to help fight crime in the subway stations. It was planned to be on a 2-month
tryout and would be patrolling in the Times Square Subway Station. When I heard about this
news, I was not really surprised at all. One of the reasons was because it is NYC, weird things
are happening here all the time. The second reason was because AI technology is developing
extremely fast. When people talk about AI today, they will be always asking if we humans are
moving too fast with AI. And some will be wondering if it will or when it will take over our jobs.
Or even bigger, like if AI will take over the world. According to the World Economic Forum’s
“The Future of Jobs Report 2020”, there might be 85 million jobs replaced by AI machines. But
at the same time, it might also create 97 million new jobs. Losing a job means that people are
losing their income, and it could lead to losing their home. So, in general, AI could be a huge
threat to workers. But what if there are specific jobs that should really be replaced by AI?
In 2015, the film “Chappie” came out. The story of it is that in the future, an engineer
creates mechanized police robots to help fight crime. The engineer also creates a program giving
a droid called “Chappie” having its own abilities to feel and think. There are lots of similar films
like the film “Chappie” and one of the examples is the film “I, Robot.” The setting of it is that in
2035, AI robots have been common and become a great friend of human. But over time, AI
robots have learned to be conscious, and they think that humanity will destroy itself. And so,
they decided to start a revolution to sacrifice part of humanity to save the rest. Maybe one day in
real life, AI will become conscious like movies. But in this writing, I am not going to focus on
what if the AI has its own conscious and then how it will control the world. Maybe these could
be some potential threats to our humanity.
Let us go back to AI replacing jobs. What kind of jobs should be replaced by AI? How do
we use AI for some jobs? Could it be like the movie “Chappie” in which people use AI police
droids to replace real humans? That sounds like a great idea because jobs like police officers, fire
fighters, and soldiers are some dangerous jobs because these jobs might have people lose their
life. In some countries like Korea and Thailand with mandatory military service, male citizens
are required to join militaries at a specific age. Here in the USA, when there are wars happening,
the government can do a draft to order eligible men to join the military. Speaking of wars, there
are always wars happening somewhere in this world. Lately, there are wars in Ukraine and
Russia, wars in Israel and Gaza. Men are forced into battlefield to fight to protect their own
countries and they might die. So, why not use our knowledge to create AI robots to replace
soldiers and send them into battlefield instead, and weaponizing AI technology into wars? In that
case, there will be less people die in wars, maybe? And when there are more people killed in
wars, instead of blaming on humanity, we should blame on AI. Is AI right or wrong? What really
should we really be against? What threats should we really be focusing on?

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I always thought that AI would be a easy topic to write about, but I was actually writing essay about AI, I just got stuck. The first challenge I have was that I didn’t know what I wanted to write about AI. One day, I saw a video on YouTube about military service in Korea. And I learned that there are some countries that have mandatory military service, which means that they require their citizens (usually males only) to join the military at a specific age range. Although we don’t have mandatory military service here in the USA, but when USA is at war, the government can do a draft to order eligible males to join the military. So, it gave me some ideas of how my essay would be. Then here came my second challenge, how to connect these things together? But it didn’t take me too long. I thought of that there are wars happening right in this world, Ukraine and Russia, Israel and Gaza. And usually, soldiers are the group of people who has highest death numbers in wars because they are the one who is fighting in a battlefield. And so, I was trying to talk about “weaponizing AI” and to think if it is a good thing to do for our world.