Kennedy Owens
Staff Writer
Speculation on the application of AI has been dominating the airwaves for a variety of reasons. From companies involved having financial instability, to cases of horrifying misuse of the technology, a lot of these stories aren’t for positive reasons. However, AI has also been both nationally and locally making its mark in staple industries such as city patrol, education, healthcare and the general workforce.
City patrolling is nothing new to the city of Lakeland. In the past, Lakeland, like many other cities, had manual surveys conducted on pavement quality every other year. This was often not an adequate intervention as damage typically worsened in the time it took the city to evaluate it.
Tampa Bay 28 in a Jan. 6 article highlighted how AI-assisted technology is being used to make this process faster.
After the city commissioners signed onto a four-year contract with Roadway Management Technologies LLC, sensors were added to city vehicles already being used. The sensors work by monitoring vibrations along the pavement which determines where cracks may be forming before they get too deep.
According to a November city.gov article, AI software is also used to patrol the streets by predicting where property crimes will likely occur using crime data from the past to generate maps in high risk areas. An example of this software is PredPol, a program used in cities like Los Angeles and Atlanta.
The goal of this software is to hopefully allow for more efficient placements of police officers in said areas. However, there are currently no long term studies proving this to be the case and the software could be prone to reaffirming past prejudices reflected in the data it’s trained on. The article suggests the technology needs to be monitored by data scientists, ethicists and stakeholders. Training is also necessary for efficient successful implementation.
AI-optimized dreams are also beginning to take shape in education outside of the typical cheating stories making headlines. In a Lifewire article from March, professors at Clemson University were highlighted for their building of AI-led math courses for middle school students. The course will have AI algorithms tracking user activity for more personalized lessons.
The researchers were also working on a recommendation system similar to the ones on popular streaming services. But instead of suggesting new TV shows to watch, the algorithm would be used to give teachers career advice.
A blog called “School.AI” also highlighted how AI could detect burnout in students and teachers. AI could also provide accommodations for disabled students by helping students with visual impairments safely roam campus, recognize objects in the classroom and translate the difference in verbal cues for non-verbal children or students with a language barrier.
These are great interventions if handled properly. A study by engageli.com has proven their success, where they claimed that, “Students in AI-enhanced active learning programs achieve 54% higher test scores than those in traditional environments.”
Since the AI would need to track students and teacher activity, there would need to be safeguards in place to protect sensitive information. If someone doesn’t want to be involved at all, they shouldn’t be pressured to join an AI-led program and instead should solely be taught by a human teacher.
Human teachers are still important in the classroom given that educators need to be empathetic towards students to aid in personalized lessons.
The healthcare industry also wants part in the so-called “AI Revolution,” and the changes are already beginning to show. According to an article from the Cleveland Clinic,, AI is being used in screening processes to catch troubling signs of an illness, flag immediate emergencies within the body and can even automatically alert medical teams. There’s also development of AI-assisted devices that record real-time changes in the body.
While this is a pretty cool application of AI in the field, AI is not a licensed clinician and will still need oversight by other healthcare professionals. The healthcare profession also still needs empathetic staff to tend to the needs of patients and an AI can currently only imitate that patient-provider bond instead of actually feeling it.
Arguably, the biggest point of contention when it comes to the advancement of AI is in the workforce. While there are some careers who will probably struggle because of this technology, there could also be some benefits employees may gain from working alongside their AI counterparts. As mentioned in a Nov. 18 article by Akshay Badkar, AI can be used to help with training, performance tracking and burnout intervention.
Companies like automating parts of the job for better productivity and cost efficiency. That said, companies still need to make sure AI usage can enhance employee performance rather than replace them. If companies neglect to do this, there could be worse product quality for consumers and a lower level of trust between employers and their employees.
AI is a great tool in many cases, but it can not be reliably implemented in many fields without human oversight. Instead of focusing on automating all tasks, we should instead focus on using AI as a tool to boost human excellence.
