Giant tech companies, like Google, Apple, and Amazon, believe that the next economic wave will be driven by artificial intelligence. Because of this, they have spent billions of dollars into research and development for the advancement of AI, a move that will place artificial intelligence in control of almost every sector of the society.
Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, IBM, and Facebook along with China's Baidu and Alibaba have spent a total of $58.2 billion in research and development. That price is more than what any of some developed countries are spending on the same activity. For example the UK only spent $53.5 billion on research and development while Russia spent $47.6 billion.
Aside from spending truckloads on research and development, these tech companies are also acquiring companies in different industries. For example, Amazon has acquired giant retail Whole Foods which has scared a lot of grocery stores around the world.
A number of Silicon Valley companies are also getting into Detroit's turf racing to dominate the auto industry with a host of self-driving cars. But that doesn't end with the retail and auto industry.
In Japan, artificial intelligence has replaced some white collar jobs, which was considered impossible before. That's because the world population is shrinking and the need for androids to perform the jobs will become a necessity.
In addition to all these, the growing threat of cybercrime will have world governments turn to artificial intelligence for help more to combat cyber criminals. The circumstances makes it impossible for the modern world to avoid it.
The thought of artificial intelligence dominating the world does not sound dire at all. It also means comfort to every day life. One example is Eatsa, an AI-operated restaurant in San Francisco. It only has one employee to oversee everything and everything else relies on AI. So far, those who have experienced the service were impressed with the efficiency and speed of the service.
