Artificial Intelligence: Friend or Enemy?

Artificial intelligence — AI — is the ability of machines to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence: learning, reasoning, recognising images, understanding language, making decisions. In recent years, progress has been spectacular. Tools like ChatGPT can hold conversations, write texts, translate languages and solve complex problems.

AI is already present in many aspects of our daily lives. When your bank automatically detects a suspicious transaction, when Netflix recommends a series you might enjoy, when a doctor uses software to analyse an X-ray — all of these are examples of artificial intelligence in action.

AI can help solve enormous problems. In medicine, it can analyse millions of data points to find new treatments for diseases. In education, it can personalise learning for each student. In science, it can speed up research that would previously have taken decades. In the fight against climate change, it can optimise energy use in cities and factories.

But AI also raises serious risks. The most discussed is the impact on employment: many current jobs could be automated. Lorry drivers, accountants, journalists, even some doctors and lawyers, could see their jobs transformed or reduced. Inequality between those who control AI and those who do not could increase significantly.

Other risks include AI-generated fake news, mass surveillance, loss of privacy, and — in more extreme scenarios — AI systems making dangerous decisions without human oversight. The debate about how to regulate AI is urgent and is underway around the world.

Machine learning, algorithm, automation, data, neural network, bias, deepfake, regulation — these are essential words for talking about AI in English at an intermediate level.