Artificial Intelligence (AI) has rapidly moved from the realm of science fiction to an integral part of our daily lives and to a driving force of technological advancement. Starting from the basic benefits that “smart” digital assistants have offered the previous years, now AI looks like it constitutes the shaping force of the future. The question of the hour, though, is whether AI can successfully keep everything under control, or there are things it is unable to manage.
AI refers to the ability of computer systems to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence. Such tasks could be problem solving, decision making, and the ability to “learn” based on data patterns and previous lived experiences.
Types of AI
There are three basic types of AI which can further be divided into many categories. First, Narrow AI refers to AI systems which are designed to perform very specific tasks and cannot be deployed in any other field different from the initial tasks. Second, General AI or GenAI refers to AI systems specifically designed not just to analyze or classify data, but to create new content. The range of outputs these systems can produce is diverse and expanding rapidly, especially in education, industries, health and other areas. Third is Super AI, where human intelligence is surpassed by machines including not only in logic, but also in emotions and creativity.
However, AI is not a monolithic entity; instead, it must be understood as a series of nested concepts, each building upon the former. The outermost layer is AI itself, the primary field. Within AI lies Machine Learning (ML), a crucial subset that enables systems to learn from data. Going deeper reveals Neural Networks and Deep Learning, which use structures inspired by the human brain to allow the learning of complex patterns, particularly from unstructured data like images and text. At the core, one finds Large Language Models (LLMs), a specialized type of AI focused on understanding and generating native human language, much like well-known digital assistants (Google assistant, Alexa, Siri etc.).
Artificial Intelligence and the Human Dilemma
Even though AI has attracted widespread interest only in the past one to two years, governments around the world have already been investing in its deployment within the military. Airplanes, drones, weapons, and robots are now capable of selecting targets, avoiding enemy defenses, and making decisions based on AI models developed by each country’s Ministry of Defense. Furthermore, AI can perform medical diagnoses with great success. In some cases, it has confirmed the results of years-long clinical testing in just a few hours or days. AI has helped people walk using exoskeletons, assisted in diagnosis by reading MRI or CT scans, enabled predictive analytics, and supported remote health monitoring through wearable devices. Autonomous vehicles powered by AI systems are already in use on roads, as well as in industrial environments such as airports and ports.
Energy management has already transitioned to smart systems that automatically allocate power with minimal human intervention. AI can further optimize this process by analyzing factors such as grid conditions, renewable energy output, pricing, demand, and other variables to achieve maximum system efficiency.
Undoubtedly, the IT sector benefits more than any other from AI, as it can be integrated into nearly every aspect of the field, including programming, network design, data analysis, cybersecurity, and much more. AI’s main use in IT is to make tasks run faster and save time, rather than to create tasks and then solve them.
Does AI control vital sectors of human life? Fortunately, no. We are still able to understand how AI learns, acts, and develops, which means humans are still behind its achievements. However, when AI systems become more sophisticated—approaching or even surpassing human intelligence and potentially developing emotions—the boundaries between AI and human intelligence may blur, raising many ethical and philosophical questions. If AI becomes superior to human intelligence, it may begin to act and write code in ways that humans cannot understand, because it might judge that there is no need for humans to understand its actions. This is precisely the most important point: we must ensure that artificial intelligence never acts without human understanding of its operations, and that it always obeys human commands.
On the contrary there are cases where AI systems are redesigned or reprogrammed to reflect their creator’s views (political/religious) leading to biased or incorrect conclusions that may be accepted as true from the general population. As a result, a major question arises: what is the truth, and are AI systems truly reliable? Furthermore, how can this be monitored or verified?
Ultimately, the question for society is: should artificial intelligence control everything? If that becomes a reality, is there reason to be concerned for humanity?
The answers to these questions are neither simple nor one-word responses. Artificial intelligence is undoubtedly a remarkable achievement of humanity.
How it will be used, and how much freedom it will have to make decisions on behalf of humans, are critical factors that will shape the future of humanity.
The answers lie in the future.
*The present article is based on the author’s presentation on the same topic at an event organized by sparta.komvos in Sparta, Greece on 20 March 2025 – you can find the recording of the event here.
