AI’s increasing ability to process larger and larger amounts of data and to analyze it with increasingly sophisticated algorithms is likely to result in improvements in all areas. Determining the future with precision, though, is more difficult. It will depend on several factors, not the least of which are the regulations that are developed now and how they are enforced.

These examples may give us a taste of what the future might bring, plus a few that might tickle your imagination.

Job Market

It’s routinely recognized that AI will impact jobs in the near and more distant future. Not only is it predicted that AI will result in job cuts this year (Fleming,  2024), but there are predictions that in the long run more than 300 million jobs will be lost or downgraded (Kelly, 2023). However, new skills will also be needed and new jobs created. Change brings opportunity as well. Did you know that “human alarm clock” was once a job? Called “knocker-uppers” (Peek, 2016), they walked the streets tapping on windows with a long stick to wake people up for work. The Future of Jobs Report 2023 (World Economic Forum, 2023) suggests that job creation will occur especially in the fields of “AI and machine learning specialists, data analysts and scientists, and digital transformation specialists”.

Scientific Discovery

Scientific discovery is the basis of progress in so many fields, and AI is destined to play a big role. For example, Harvard Medical School has developed the technology to predict the evolution of a virus (Willige, 2023). Imagine if that had been available before the pandemic struck. Now imagine the future.

Another example has to do with identifying protein structure. Proteins are essential to supporting our lives and understanding their structure is central. Alphabet – Google’s new AlphaFold – is reported to have predicted the structure of all known proteins, and is ready to make significant progress. This information will be used to discover new diseases, new drugs, and new vaccines.

Then there’s the goal of personalized medicine, seen as a major milestone in healthcare. AI could prove to be the vector for developing personalized treatment in a much shorter period of time, including omitting the need for clinical trials (Tewari, 2022). Finally, review of existing scientific research is important in the development of new research (Schmidt, 2023). This is another way that AI could play a significant role.

Cyber Security

Cyber attacks, which have steadily increased, are up 20% in the last year and are now at their highest ever (Madnick, 2023). According to the Harvard Business Review (Madnick, 2024), globally the number of victims doubled in the past year.

AI, in its ability to crunch large amounts of live data, analyze it in real-time, and make predictions, is becoming a major player in cyber defense. The size and scope of its abilities can be used proactively to discover vulnerabilities and trigger automatic responses. The same strengths applied to dynamic threat detection work to identify anomalies as well as indicate false positives. Further, AI can be used to train people who work with AI. The effectiveness of AI will depend on many things, not the least of which is the scope and accuracy of its data set, which will need constant updating.

The same capabilities are unfortunately available to generate threatening attacks. In just one example of many reported by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) (n.d.) to have occurred in January of this year, webcams in Kyiv were hacked to glean information on the city’s air defense system before a missile attack was launched.

AI is seen to play a significant role in the physical as well as the digital battlefield. Benjamin Jensen, speaking before the U.S. Senate Select Committee about national security (“Addressing the National Security Implications of AI”, 2023), pointed out that enlisted men in the military will need training in data science and coding in order to respond to the rapidly changing information supplied by AI in the dynamic environment of the battlefield. He observed that “The general or spy who doesn’t have a model by their side in the 21st century will be blind man in a bar fight.”

Does all this augur defense without human intervention? Not so. Mr. Jensen is not the only one who believes its strength is within the hands of human beings. Human control and insight is, in fact, recommended throughout the industry (Avey, 2023).

Here are a few future possibilities that may be a little harder to predict:

AI and Mindreading

There is research showing that AI can be used to read thoughts (Tang et al., 2023). Brain activity was recorded through a cap that registered electrical activity; then AI was used to convert it into intelligible text. Neural decoding is not new, but recent research has been made public. The value of this technology can be inestimable for people with communication difficulties. It also, however, raises questions: Where will it stop? In the future, will a cap be necessary? Will wireless technology do the job?  ….  In the long run, what will happen to privacy?

If you have not heard enough, let us share one more apparently far-fetched thought. Leo Kim in Wired Magazine (2023) posits the idea that this technology, not unlike others, could be reversed. Will there come a time when technology could, in fact, change our thoughts?

Interspecies Communication

Doctor Dolittle may have had it right — with the help of generative AI. We’ve been making efforts over the years to understand animals with some success. With the help of generative AI, we may be able to accomplish this more fully and more quickly (Love et al., 2024). What about the reverse?  Once we decode their language, it’s not that far to believe we could communicate it back to them and establish two-way communication. (If you’re interested in seeing moving elephants up close and in hearing some of their communication, check out “How AI is decoding the animal kingdom”.)

After Death Communication (in a way)

Using hours of recorded conversation with a person before their death, generative AI has been used to converse with them, even ask their advice, afterward (Carballo, 2023). There are various tools, some as simple as a laptop in their home, that can be used to capture what the person has to share. Some people are not comfortable with the results, others are elated by  the experience.

AI is here. Fasten your seatbelt!