Afterward: The Future of Smartphones

But if we define intelligence like this, what then is artificial intelligence? Let’s agree that AI is an area of knowledge where several disciplines converge, such as mathematics (with subfields such as network theory, optimization, or information theory), linguistics, neuroscience, economics and game theory, philosophy, and engineering, among others. As Trappl points out, the term “AI” was first coined by John McCarthy (in 1956), who defined it as “the science and engineering of making intelligent machines.“¹ In other words, he defines it as a science that creates intelligent machines or machines capable of making decisions in a rapidly changing environment. Now, what relationship does AI have with a smartphone?

The truth is, a lot! If we look at the IMF report,² for example, AI will become more important every day. In fact, the report highlights that “almost 40% of global employment is exposed to AI,” and AI has a direct effect on productivity, given that “the gain in productivity is very strong and this can result in greater growth and higher incomes for workers.” Therefore, it is possible to say that AI is a technology that is here to stay and will increasingly be incorporated into our daily lives, often without us even knowing it. Without going any further, much of the software programming we use on our phones can be (and, in fact, is) optimized through AI. There are smartphone models that incorporate AI elements into their operating system design that improve their performance and predictive capacity. There’s already a name for phones that actively use AI: AI smartphones. They’re the new generation of phones that aim to be more than just a phone, but a 24/7 personal assistant. Some of them are so well-​designed that they can predict what you need to do, given how you use your phone. Artificial intelligence in the palm of your hand.

Now, leaving aside the issue related to the use of personal data (by companies or the government), it is important to ask whether AI, in general, and the functionality of AI smartphones, in particular, pose any danger to individuals? We tend to think so. Generally speaking, AI presents an immense danger to individual freedom, since this technology is in the hands of the government, who today has the possibility of using it not only to spy on its citizens but also to establish restrictions on various freedoms, such as freedom of speech (China, Russia, North Korea, Iran, among many others) or freedom of mobility (as in the time of COVID-19, where in some countries a pass was required to travel, and the places where a person traveled could be tracked). On the other hand, if we look at the specific use that AI can have on smartphones, our reflection focuses on the potential dependency that optimizing the smartphone operating system can generate. In other words, AI is a tool, and as such, it can have malicious or beneficial uses. Thus, a systematic study developed by Ratan³ shows various effects that the addictive use of smartphones has on health. These range from mental health (depression) to physical health (musculoskeletal problems), among others. In addition, there are other effects derived from the intensive use of social media and the telephone, such as the relationship between bullying and social media (studies have found that social media, using smartphones, are a kind of amplifier of bullying behaviors in schools).

However, it is important to reiterate that these described situations are only a fraction of the infinite uses that AI can have on a smartphone and do not cover the wide range of positive applications it can have on these devices. There are uses for AI: smartphones connected to watches with medical software that provide information on a person’s moment-​by-​moment health status. These uses include a personal assistant that provides contextual suggestions based on what the user needs to know at any given moment (making proactive recommendations); a real-​time voice translator; or a spatial location device that provides suggestions to optimize travel, among many other uses.

We still need to say one more word about the potential impact AI can have on individuals’ lives. This relates to the physical integration that phones can have with individuals’ bodies. For example, there is a whole trend related to transhumanism, which can be defined as “a philosophical and scientific movement that advocates the use of current and emerging technologies—such as genetic engineering, cryonics, artificial intelligence (AI), and nanotechnology—to augment human capabilities and improve the human condition.“⁴ This is nothing more than human-​machine integration, and will surely be controversial at times and have an immense impact, still difficult to quantify. Examples of this include the application of electronic devices to human vision (allowing people to recover their sight); the incorporation of intelligent orthopedic parts (such as exoskeletons) into humans, which allows people who were previously unable to walk to do so; and subcutaneous devices that monitor factors such as blood pressure or sugar levels.

Smartphones are machines that give us experiences, so we end with a reflection on the “experience machine,” derived from Robert Nozick’s masterpiece Anarchy, State and Utopia.⁵ This metaphor consists of an experiment proposed by the author, asking us to imagine a machine that was capable of giving us all the meaningful and pleasurable experiences we could ever want, ones that we could not distinguish from reality. Nozick argues that individuals would choose not to be connected to the machine because we would prefer to live in real life. In other words, he says that each of us would prefer the real experience of getting married, having children, climbing the Ojos del Salado Volcano or writing this essay, rather than the simulated experiences on a machine. Time will tell if Nozick was right.