The Duality of AI: So Close to the future yet so far?

ARTICLE BY: Miguel Balinado

A Promising powerhouse of the Future

It was the year 2000 and the Y2K phenomenon is at its greatest heights, the world has never been geared up towards the future as much as it is today. In the US, Young adults raving about the PlayStation 2 while lining up at a local GameStop store all exhilarated on the thought of running a technological powerhouse on the comfort of their homes. On the other side of the Pacific, Softbank and Sharp released the world's first-ever commercially available camera phone, the J-Phone. The world is in its toes witnessing technological marvels one after the other and there seemed to be no stopping.

Despite of all the technological advancements all throughout the globe, there are still aspects in our life that remained true to its old-fashioned form. Payphones are still a symbol of metro living and communication, all corporate work are still done almost solely on traditional office spaces. One still needs to go to the local Blockbuster (If you are living in the US) or Video City (if you live in the Philippines), in order to rent and binge watch your favorite movies.

The concept of Artificial Intelligence (AI) taking over human jobs increasingly becoming more imminent as time goes forward. Technologically-powerful robots that can play soccer or even, extinguish fires had been the showcase of powerful nations such as Japan and the US. The possibilities were limitless and the excitement grew more as a couple of decades roll on.

Duality of AI: Expectation vs Reality

Great visions of the future such as flying cars that are driven by AI companions or robots that can perform human locomotion and even has human emotions. These are all the concepts that tantalize our imaginations when it comes to the topic of artificial intelligence and robotics. However, fast forward to 2024 and we now have AI programs that schedule job interviews for corporations and programs that writes essays for students who see writing as "too much tedious".

Software applications that can copy actual human voices and masquerade as a political figure or a celebrity. Programs that can answer a student's assignment just by inputting the homework questions and the list goes on. Companies desperate to "simplify" jobs and creating their own versions of Siri and ChatGPT with the ultimate goal of reducing massive amounts of costs, prying away jobs from actual humans and delegating them to chip-powered contraptions.

It is not to say that it is all but negative, it really has become a huge help to us humans, all over the decades. Artificial Intelligence indeed has taken huge steps forward from what it was way back in the 2000s but the question now is "Is this the AI that we wanted? Is this the technological marvel that we all raved for?"

ASIMO (stands for Advanced in Innovative Mobility) is a humanoid robot project developed by Honda in the end of the 90's and officially unveiled in the year 2000. Its main purpose is to showcase the great potentials of Artificial Intelligence especially in relation to daily, human activities and skilled work functions. Healthcare and Medicine is one of the fields that ASIMO plans to take by storm, conceptualizing a robot that can perform nursing and elderly care duties just like a human nurse. However, after a series of failed exploits, Honda finally hit the nail on the coffin of the aforementioned project and has announced that it the robotics arm of the company will now shift its focus on practical-use industrial technologies instead of locomotive bots that emulate human capabilities.

It is only one of the many reminders, if not a clear sign that robots can never replace humans especially in the workplace settings (at least not yet).

Duality of Artificial Intelligence Today and Tomorrow

Despite the elusiveness of the success in the human's foray towards a future living with locomotive robots, just like the ones pictured in movies of Steven Spielberg and Michael Bay. Humans are earning more and more success in developing software and hardware that aids people in daily, labor, and corporate tasks.

Banking and financial companies find bookkeeping tasks easier today than it was 20 years ago, thanks to the influx of Accounting and finance software such as Quickbooks and Finacle. In the medical field, mHealth (Mobile health assisting) apps started to proliferate and is now easily accessible on all smart phone and other similar devices. Applications such as Dentsio, the first ever all-in-one professional dental business software offers a somewhat groundbreaking innovation with its patient records management and orthodontics chart features. Whereas in the area of Food Manufacturing, ChocEdge (3D Chocolate food printer) had become commercially available in the United Kingdom in 2012.

In 1987, CRISPR which had long become of significant importance in the field of medical science was first discovered in the Osaka University in Japan. It was not up until 2020, when a patient receive the first ever gene editing therapy in Oregon State University in the United States. Gene editing therapy which had been proven (through a series of clinical trials) to help treat and prevent Genetic diseases such as Cancer and Leukemia is seen as one of the medical breakthroughs that can help shape the future of healthcare worldwide. Quantum Computing.

Smart cities is a modern technological phenomenon that refers to urban areas being fully connected and powered by technology. From the simplest IoTs (Internet of Things) technology such as smart TV, Apple watches, and smart refrigerators to more complex ones such as Singapore's Intelligent Transport System (ITS), tech companies aim to help in revolutionizing the ways we live. In the future, we can expect more automation and faster transfer of data from various systems and network infrastructures.

AI in the Philippines

It comes as a no surprise that a third-world country like the Philippines could be lagging globally when it comes to gearing up towards the future. One such proof is the abysmal Internet speed ranking that the country has been known for pre-pandemic era. However, since then the country's telco giants such as Globe and PLDT had made significant strides to improve the Internet speed in the country which indeed brought significant developments in the aforementioned technology. According to a data released last December 2017, Philippines had a dismal average speed of 12.3 mbps (4G technology) which is worlds apart from the country's current 5G (March 2024) average speed today of 93.91 mbps (Data according to OOKLA Speedtest Global Index).

If the data indicates something, that will be AI and technology in the country is significantly improving and could be on the way to reach new heights. The more "wired" or internet-connected a country is, the more it has access to the benefits of artificial intelligence technologies.

Years ago, the Philippines' internet technology is so abysmal that its already lagging behind the global average in an exponential rate. Being future ready was very far of reach from Juan's hands, however, due to solid efforts from the government and Telco companies, Philippines is becoming more and more future-ready.