Artificial Intelligence and the Future of Humanity

Ercan Oztemel is a Professor of Engineering Faculty of Marmara University in the Department of Industrial Engineering. His main areas of interest include artificial intelligence, simulation and modeling, knowledge-based systems, strategic planning, quality engineering, decision support systems, etc. He has been teaching thee topics and doing research in these areas. He already carried out various national and international projects which were covering a wide range of areas including military, health, public services, manufacturing, transportation, education, etc. He had and has been performing academic activities both in the universities and in the Turkish Science and Engineering Council of Turkey. While doing research in TUBİTAK he was also appointed as a member of the decision board of the Information Technology Research Institute of TUBİTAK. For his academic activities, apart from doing the research in various domains, he has been taking part in the committees of various scientific journals (including Journal of Intelligent Manufacturing (still continue as the associate editor), Robotics and Autonomous Systems, Production Planning and Control, International Journal of Intelligent Systems and Applications in Engineering, IAENG International Journal of Computer Science, Computers and Industrial Engineers, Expert systems with Application, Journal of Artificial intelligence and Pattern Recognitions, et.) by being quest editor, scientific committee member or reviewer.


Social transformation and change continue inevitably. With the help of technological developments such as artificial intelligence, “Industry 3.0” societies are evolving into “Industry 4.0” societies with remarkable speed. Many countries and academic communities are already started to discuss Industry 5.0 which is one step ahead of the current developments which is the next transformation. With each passing day, both new technologies and important developments in existing technologies are emerging. Human beings are literally drifting towards a world where unmanned systems are to be widely employed. In this part of the book, digital transformation and its basic characteristics are highlighted, and the impact of artificial intelligence technology on society in this transformation process is assessed. The role of artificial intelligence is shaping the future of humanity is discussed. Some recommendations are made on how to manage the progress of this process through a comprehensive analysis of the transformation from the past to the future. The milestones in the historical development of artificial intelligence are especially reviewed and it is pointed out that this technology is the most important driving force of social transformation when combined with information technologies and robotics. The Chapter points out some positive effect of artificial intelligence over societies by being one of the driving forces for; enabling the transfer of labor-intensive jobs to robots and fostering unmanned factories for being the part of life, encouraging the development and wide-spread use of unmanned vehicles, providing opportunities for individuals to serve as personal assistants, facilitating and easing the community life with intelligent city practices, leading to the generation and emergence of new professions, becoming a tool that can be used in social media applications and social orientations, etc. It also highlights some of the negative effects such as triggering the emergence of robotics applications that will misbehave within social interactions, elimination of privacy, encouraging cyberattacks, promoting the inability to get rid of undesired information, providing means to steal information and violate intellectual property rights, etc.