CALGARY — Lately, AI has been in the limelight for all the wrong reasons.From reports of OpenAI agents going rogue in "unexpected or concerning" cases to some AI researchers warning of the end of humanity being near — led by the ever-evolving AI — AI fear-mongering can seem a bit overwhelming of late. Since many of the warnings are coming from the horse's mouth, i.e., the testimony of AI researchers, this can be hard to argue against.Despite this, the Western Standard will attempt to put its readers' frowns upside down and highlight the positive impact AI has contributed to the world.So without further ado, here's a list of the quite optimistic things AI is doing for humanity, because yes, there is always a bright side..OpenAI admits its AI agents caught lying, scheming, and covering tracks.1. AI takes on brain surgeryIn late August, AI-assisted surgery was used for the first time to guide the removal of a brain tumour at the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery (NHNN) in London, England.The AI itself was developed by the University College London (UCL) researchers, and it ended up saving the life of 48-year-old Rhys Hibbert, alongside neurosurgeons.Hibbert is the first-ever patient to receive AI-assisted surgery, and it is easy to presume he is grateful for it.Without surgery, Hibbert's tumour would likely have caused blindness — and with the extraction of the tumour, his vision was protected..Here's how the surgery went down: the AI analysed the live footage of the surgery in real time, instead of using pre-surgery scans, supplying the surgical team with more precise decisions by highlighting critical structures at the base of the brain.This is where the pituitary gland is located, a small-sized lobe where blood vessels and nerves which control vision are all tightly packed together, creating a difficult area to access — as even a millimetre mistake can be fatal or lead to blindness or a stroke.The AI was able to properly assess the correct location of the tumour and how much of it was safe to cut without risking Hibbert's life.It also supported surgeons by tracking surgical instruments and instrument-tissue interactions..2. Why don't we just have the robot do the entire thing?Surgical robots might not be as new as you might think — in fact, they have been around for a few decades now, beginning in the 1990s, as reported by Ars Technica.Da Vinci surgical robots are indeed old news, but an intelligent add-on, AI, is much newer.Johns Hopkins University researchers added their own AI to the robots, then taught them to perform a gallbladder removal surgery, also known as a cholecystectomy.Prior to AI being used, the robots relied on a pre-programmed system."The program told the robot exactly how to move and what to do. It worked like in these Kuka robotic arms, welding cars on factory floors," explained Ji Woong Kim, a robotics researcher. .So, how is the robot different now that it uses AI?The robots are now actively learning, and they act autonomously on what they have studied through surgical footage.As Kim explains, the AI on the da Vinci "learns from demonstrations,” training its system, known as SRT-H (Surgical Robot Transformer).The software they used to support their AI system was based on the same architecture, two transformer models, responsible for ChatGPT.The robot is now able to perform a cholecystectomy with a 100% success rate on pig cadavers, though no operations on humans have been executed yet..3. No seeing, no problemThough the Western Standard would never claim guide dogs were replaceable, AI can also help guide those in need of visual descriptions.Microsoft's AI application, Seeing AI, is meant to assist the blind by granting them audio descriptions of their surroundings when they point their phone cameras at their target — and viola!It provides audio guidance as well as narration of printed text and pages, even going so far as to recognize and describe people, facial expressions, and scenes..4. Antiquity RebornWhat better reason for humans to use AI than reconstructing and preserving history?Thanks to Google AI's DeepMind, AI agents were created with the help of historians: Aeneas, which interprets Latin, and Ithaca, which interprets ancient Greek.Both help historians to contextualize ancient inscriptions, so they can better and more efficiently restore fragmentary texts.The agents interpret Latin and ancient Greek — with lots of opportunities to do so, as, for example, the Roman world had a thing for writing almost everything everywhere, etching into everyday objects, from messages of political graffiti, love poems, epitaphs, business transactions, birthday invitations, to magical spells. .With many of these texts being withered and defaced, restoring, dating, and contextualizing the inscriptions are essential for deciphering the missing text.This AI saves time for historians by reasoning across thousands of Latin or ancient Greek texts, retrieving similar inscriptions, allowing for historical interpretation, and building on the AI's findings. .5. Got good genes?Google's Alpha Genome Atlas is an AI that has had all the possible genetic codes run through it by assembling all DNA letter codes humans could possibly have (over nine billion possibilities) and predicting how genes work and their impacts.After collecting all of this data, it can measure how the human body is affected when different genes are altered even slightly.It then saves all the results of these altered genes in a large database for researchers to access.The impact of genetic changes could even contribute to different types of diseases, which can be discovered by researchers, and this can help with treating them.The AI replaces the old way of manual data searching with "hypothesis generation" in minutes, making genetic research much more efficient..6. Houston, we are in need of a satellite mapAnother creation of Microsoft, High-speed Assessment and Satellite Tracking for Emergencies (HASTE), is the AI everyone would want if they found themselves in an emergency situation.Its AI-assisted satellite analysis system has the ability to encapsulate imagery via satellite data, creating maps of a location post-disaster, even on the day it occurs.This technology then allows first responders to pinpoint where the most damaged regions of disasters are within hours instead of the weeks it might otherwise take, to better direct emergency aid.
