How can Artificial Intelligence enhance life in the 21st century. Are Essay

How can Artificial Intelligence enhance life in the 21st century. Are there any drawbacks If so, what are they, and how can they be overcome - Essay Example AI can be widely applied at privet homes for personal assistance. The more work is done by machines the less work is required by humans. As the result, the number of injuries and work-related stress are reduced. The debate over the need to apply AI in everyday life will persist for many years; however, the advantages offered by AI exceed all possible drawbacks. Only twenty years ago scientists did not dare to imagine computers understanding the human speech, while today the speech recognition programs are widely used. People are able to work with computers and mobile phones by talking to technology. AI made technology usable by people with disabilities, for example. The vision programs made it possible to develop robots that can see and talk. Such robots are already used for exploration purposes. AT is applied to teaching programs; impersonal software is able to adapt to its users. The capabilities of machines are infinite and the future of it is positive and optimistic. The strongest argument against AI is that machines are dead and, therefore, cannot possess intelligence. However, AI is no longer a myth and humans have already created numerous intelligent machines to help in everyday life. The "honorable" mission of AI is not supported globally. "Within a few decades, computers and robots will be cleverer than us and we won't date to unplug them, while the new biotechnologies could transform our species" (Tudge, 2000, p. 23). Humans will not give up the science because they are in need of high tech for day-to-day survival. Undoubtedly, the human brain differs from computers in complexity and quality. Half a century ago, it did not matter whether computers would be conscious or intelligent. Nevertheless, today computers already have calculating power, endless patience, and bottomless memory. With the added consciousness and emotions, computers might become formidable. The main problem with the Artificial Intelligence is the fear that it may turn against the humans. AI has enormous learning capability and can accomplish many complex tasks that humans cannot. "By 2010, computers are expected to match computational capabilities of the human brain, an estimated 3,200,000 instructions per second" (Molitor, 2003, p. 65). Computers, ranging from massive supercomputers to PCs, offer wide range of services that make human life more interesting: cable TV, teleconferencing, electronic fund transfer systems, shopping without leaving the house, magazines on video, automatic home security services, special services for the people with disabilities, etc. This list has no end. The supercomputer developed by IBM beat the chess-player master Garry Kasparov in 1995 and laid the foundation for concerns on reasoning powers and learning potentials of machines. Problems that required teams of people working many years to solve can be solved by AI in a couple of seconds. Voice recognition, in particular, has achieved a 10,000 word-capacity with 98% accuracy (Molitor, 2003, p

To what extent is internet banking safe Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

To what extent is internet banking safe - Essay Example Hackers look for online retailers with large customer base and poor security to obtain their usernames and passwords to access their financial information. Most customers fall prey to emails that appear to be send by their bank but steal the customers’ passwords by leading them to fraudulent websites. Keylogging is a process through which all strokes of a password are tracked by a virus while the password is being entered. It can breach personal computers’ defences. Ordinary web users can fend off such software with having latest versions of anti-virus software installed and extra-thick internet firewalls. Hackers use latest technology to surpass their barriers and many users overlook regular computer checks. In order to deal with these threats, online banks avoid connecting to the internet directly. Instead, they use firewall technology to protect their computer system from unauthorized access. Many online banks hire outside security experts so as to ensure that their systems are secure internally and externally against the experts’ attempts to make unauthorized attacks. If a user forgets logging off while the banking session has been inactive for a certain duration which is usually few minutes, the online bank ends the session for the user. The information can thus not be accessed in the terminated account. The user needs to give the User ID and Password to resume the banking session again. Security systems commonly employed by online banks can be categorized into two types; software based systems and hardware based systems. In the software based systems, information is coded and decoded with the help of specialized security software. These systems are in abundance in the market because of their ease of distribution and portability. Security systems based on software employ encryption as the main method. Encryption modifies information so that it becomes unreadable till the process is reversed. Online banks use Secured Socket Layer (SSL) encryption to provide their users with safe online transaction services. Messages in each session are encrypted with a unique master key. Encryption is a process of communication in which the private information is scrambled to deter unauthorized access during the transmission of information from the user’s browser to the bank. The master key used for a particular session is wasted once the user has signed off because it was only meant for one session. Users need an internet browser which supports the encryption of 128 bits before they can login to the internet banking (FirstBank, 2013). This ensures use of the highest security level. Some examples of the current encryption technology include digital signature, pretty good privacy (PGP), and Kerberos (Yang, 1997). A digital signature transforms a signed message so that the sender is recognizable to the reader. A private key is used to sign the messages which are then verified with a public