When it comes to movies or TV shows genre, Sci-Fi is my personal favorite. And in Sci-Fi section the thing which excites me the most is the battle between the AI vs Humans. Where, the AI has gone out of human control and is causing ruckus. Westworld, Ex Machina, and Black Mirror have wonderfully portrayed this on the television.
However, the question which arises in viewer’s mind is that whether is it possible for AI to gain self-awareness and fight against humans? The thought of it very scary and it becomes even frightening when the likes of Elon Musk shows their concern for the threat that AI could possess.
It’s not very long when we saw the first sign of AI’s “rebellion”. In 2017, Facebook stopped two of their bots after they started conversing with each other in a way that humans failed to track. Many other such incidents took place like Microsoft’s Twitter bot and a Chinese Chatbot did what they weren’t supposed to. So, is it the time that we should start worrying about AI domination?
What have AI done
To give you a little perspective of what AI can do, let’s see what are some of the mind-blowing stuff that it has done till date.
- Google’s AI builds its own AI which outruns all the human-made AIs
- AI learns to write its own code by stealing lines of codes from an existing software
- AI defeats world’s top poker players
- Self-taught AI outperforms skilled doctors at predicting heart attacks.
- AI discovers two new planets for NASA
I am quite sure these cases might have dropped your jaws and you might be feeling shocked and terrified. These events clearly exhibit the potential that AI possesses. Many scientists perceive this potential as a threat. In fact, this has caused a huge divide among well-known scientists and entrepreneurs.
It is very difficult to predict whether AI could be a threat; however, one thing is for sure that QA testers don’t need to lose their sleep over it. Having said that, they must be alert and ready to incorporate this new technology.
Why Testers don’t need to fear AI
You all might be wondering that even after all such speculations and potential threats why testers shouldn’t worry about AI? It is because manual testing will still survive even after all this AI hullabaloo. Here’s how.
- Manual Testing Won’t Become Obsolete
Manual testing is the traditional method and it would remain like this even in the future. It is a fact that there hasn’t been any bug free software even with automation testing in place. Moreover, manual testing plays a significant role when it comes to the testing strategies of software which engages in high-quality user experience.
- Perils of Overdependencies on AI Testing
Presently, there are some AI testing apps such as Eggplant AI. These and some other Mobile app testing service apps are useful in finding errors in your program. The engine working behind the AI is responsible for generating various test paths. However, it is crucial to note that what you are obtaining is a level of testing at the very end of the lifecycle of product development.
Now the point to ponder upon is that if companies decide to adopt this specific route, then they would miss out on proficient QA developers. These are the developers who can provide them with high quality in various aspects such as scalability & performance, documentation management, security & risk, and tracking key metrics.
- QA Engineers Can Utilize AI to Become Better
Instead of fearing from AI, what testers can do is think of a pragmatic way of incorporating AI in their work to become better. AI would be a boon for testers as it won’t only identify bugs faster but would also suggest where they could be.
With AI coming to the scene testers must pull up their socks otherwise they have to sit home. Due to this we would require highly skilled and specialized QA testers. With AI doing most of the elementary tasks we would need QA experts who can handle the complicated tasks and can assign AI.
Conclusion
We saw what AI can do in present time and the futurists are expecting it to do way more than that in near future. Especially, in the field of IT, artificial intelligence will be a milestone. However, with the benefits it also brings a fear of replacing human testers. Although, it won’t be the case as explained above. However, testers need to be extremely careful because if they don’t keep up with the technology, then their fear could well turn into a reality.
Artificial intelligence shows us an exciting future. However, we must be careful while developing it for advance stages. We must keep human testers in center and build AI assistance in the periphery rather than doing the opposite. This approach would surely ensure a harmonious co-existence between human testers and AI. At last, we all can hope of a better future with AI and wishing that not even a single scene from those Sci-Fi movies becomes a reality.
Author – Bio
Shahid Mansuri
Shahid Mansuri Co-founded Peerbits, one of the leading mobile application development company USA, in 2011. His visionary leadership and flamboyant management style have yield fruitful results for the company. He believes in sharing his strong knowledge base on “how to build a mobile app” with learned concentration.
- Web: https://www.peerbits.com
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/shahidmansuri
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mansurishahid
