Computing Machinery and Intelligence - Essay Example

Computing Machinery and Intelligence This paper seeks to identify the roles of patents in the computer industry. It aims toinvestigate how various patent rights should be enforced and its benefits to the companies. It examines the impact of such on consumers and the company at large. It also studies artificial intelligence and how it affects our day to day lives. Its importance is also examined and the various ways in which it applies to our day to day lives. Introduction A patent refers to a right or authority to a particular thing or title (Bowyer, 1990). The licenses restrict others from using the same or duplicating the content or innovation for other purposes. In developed countries, patents are taken very seriously and anybody who goes ahead to steal or sell the change or uses someones idea to develop an invention which is similar to a patented one can be sued and fined heavily An invention and innovation are patented if and only if it is new such that it has never existed in the world, and no one knows of its existence. It, therefore, gives the inventor the legal rights to own it, and no one should be allowed to develop the same. A patent can also be granted if the product is an improvement of an already existing product. The improvement must be unique and entirely detached from the idea of the person who developed it. An example would be the ancient computers and a laptop. The original plan was the invention of a machine which was bulky and immense, and it was not portable. The developers of a laptop had the concept of a network in mind, but they totally created a innovation which was the compact, light and developed a long-lasting battery. Their innovation could thus be patented, and any other company which was interested in producing the same had to buy the rights from them. This is thus even a lucrative business in itself. The United States grant patent rights where it is convinced beyond reasonable doubt that the invention is new or is an absolute improvement of an existing one. This is done for a fee, and a certificate of ownership is given. Patent rights resulted from lots of chaos in the recent years. The most affected is the high-tech companies such as Microsoft, Apple, Blackberry, Samsung and the likes. Court cases have become the order of the day as the companies sue each other over patent rights and the infringement of the rights. (Bowyer, 1990) Samsung has been hit with a number of lawsuits against various companies. A most recent one includes a copyright infringement lawsuit against the chip maker Nvidia Company that alleged the violation of the mobile graphic processors. They tried to meet up with Samsung for a licensing agreement and when this failed they resulted in a court pursuit. It is, therefore, clear that patent infringement is taken very seriously. Why does this happen? As technology advances, the patent lawsuits keep increasing as well. High tech companies the most popular being Apple, Samsung, Nokia, HTC, Motorola, Google and Sony have on certain occasions been involved in patent infringement lawsuits since they almost produce the same products. The current ongoing war is the smartphone patent licensing and litigation. Each company would want to expand their market share and being granted patents would be a way of preventing the other companies from producing the same thus they can either earn by selling the certificate rights to the other firms or will just focus on selling the product solely thus making the maximum profits from the product. When a product is being developed, a number of trials are undertaken so that the output can be perfect. These tests are not easy, and companies often spend a lot of money when making this. In the high-tech firms, the development of the different products or additional features in the already existing products is not easy. A lot of research is undertaken, and it takes a lot of time to implement the idea fully. Once the plan finally pays off, and the product is launched, the company would want to be the only one with such a product. Its reception in the market is also an important factor. A good example is the first touch screen phones that it the market. People were amazed, and everyone wanted to have it despite its high cost. The phone, produced by IBM in 1992 hit the world by storm. Currently, all mobile phone companies provide touch screen phones and smart phones. The company thus finds it unfair that other companies are using their ideas to develop the products, and so they will want compensation hence the patent infringement lawsuits. Countries such as the EU are constantly finding and threatening to fine high-tech companies over anti-competitive behavior ( Ginart&Park1997). These actions threaten the economy of the countries and as such the governments try to enforce rules to prevent this. Such anti-competitive practices include dumping which involves selling the products at extremely low prices. This not only causes loss for the company involved but also tends to force some companies out of the market. Other anti-competitive behaviors include price fixing which ultimately leads to the dismantling of the free market and dividing territories and refusal to deal. Laws concerning patents in the computer industry The computer industry is bound by various laws concerning patents. These rules govern how the industry runs and are very widespread. Some of this laws include; Software patent law. These are laws which govern the software part of the computer industry. A software is a program or information used by a computer. These programs are developed by individuals or a computing company. Various programs perform different functions otherwise known as commands, and some may take years to develop. Once complete, patenting is crucial to avoid infringements and use of the programs. Some companies have various software that they wish if they could have the ownership and, as a result, they would patent them to prevent others from using. Hardware patent laws. Hardware refers to the physical components of a computer, (Ginart&Park1997). These rules are meant to govern the infringement of rights for new computer components. Effects of lawsuits and questions behavior on consumers When a company is faced with charges of infringements of patents by a particular company, it ultimately adversely affects the users. The lawsuits cause adverse publicity and as such affect how the consumers respond and react to the product. Some of the effects include; The bad publicity will make the consumer lose faith in the company and its products and as a result they will restrain from buying products related to the enterprise. The users will start questioning the credibility of the enterprise and authentication of the products and as such will lose faith in the products. The regain of the trust may take a long time. An example includes the lawsuits against Samsung on the patent infringement concerning the graphics on its smartphones. Consumers were affected by the adverse publicity that came with it and were soon unwilling to buy the products. They discouraged other potential buyers through word of mouth and as such very few people were willing to purchase the product. Consumers will end up feeling betrayed, and the brand loyalty will totally disappear. They may have a hard time adjusting to other products and will hence be very disappointed and unsettled. Brand association with the customers will also be affected as no one would like to be associated with brands that are deemed and viewed negatively. What is the effect of all these lawsuits have from the companies themselves? Lawsuits affect the company involved adversely. The effects can be as follows; The companies lose a lot of money since they have to involve lawyers to represent them in the courts of law. The lawyers charge lots of money in such sensitive cases and as such the companies end up spending lots of money In the cases where the companies lose in the cases and end up being fined, they pay a colossal amount of money as compensation, and this ends up disrupting the entire financial position and situation of the firm.In extreme cases, the company takes a lot of time to recover after undergoing such and may even never require. The company will be prohibited from ever producing the product again. This is a major disadvantage as the money it had invested in purchasing and providing raw materials for the products will go to waste. They may also be forced to cut on employees who were hired to enable the production of those products and as such the company may have to pay the termination of contract fees to the employees. The company will realize exceptionally low levels of sales, and this will result in substantial losses. Store owners will be unwilling to place the products in their stores, and so the accessibility of the products to customers will be very limited. Damaged brand equity is also a common effect. When a particular product belonging to a firm is negatively publicized, consumers tend to avoid all the names owned by the company altogether. This thus causes low levels of sales not only to the product involved but to all the goods belonging to the enterprise. A good example of an enterprise that was affected by all this lawsuits is Samsung. It was sued by Apple for patent infringement claims. Samsung had copied almost all the graphics and functionality of Apple on its Android phone. When it was sued and lost the case, it was charged an overwhelming $120 million dollars in damages. It was also required to stop the production of all the phones with the features or completely change the graphics. The lawsuit affected the company negatively, and the customer and market base significantly dropped. This affected the profit margin of the enterprise very significantly. How could we fix this problem or is there an issue with the ways things are going in high-tech industries The rate at which the lawsuits for patent infringement are happening is worrying. This problem could be fixed in various ways. Though it is unlikely that the different corporations would agree to it, some of the ways of making the problem include; 1.The companies should come together and brainstorm on ways to improve the available products. By paying for the charges together, through will own the rights to the various programs together, and when they produce their products, it will be harmonious, and no one will ever have to be sued 2.They should follow the laid down strategies of “borrowing” a particular program. They may buy the rights from the company that devised it and had the rights of producing similar products. This saves them a lot of court time, embarrassment, and problems that come about with being sued. The adverse publicity will thus be avoided. 3. The companies can come to an understanding as to the scope in which they should produce similar products. The agreement should be precise, and both companies should honor that 4.The businesses can even form mergers in specific products’ production. They will thus have equal ownership of the product involved and thus will just share the profits after sales very amicably. Is there something inherent in the nature of high-tech businesses that leads to all this acrimony? Technology is a very dynamic world. It changes so fast. One day a product is the latest in the market and the next day it is already obsolete. To survive in a comparative market, a serious company has to be updated. A lot of work is put into it, and it is also time-consuming Every company has to stay relevant in the job market so as continue in its production and sales. As such, it always feels threatened when other companies are developing or advancing their products. A small development causes a lot of difference, and if the difference makes the company sell more, other companies will be tempted to steal the idea to develop their products. High tech companies are the most susceptible to this crime. It is thus not a wonder that almost all mobile phone companies have similar features in their products. Sometimes the only difference is the price of the various products as well as the name and presentation of the programs. The rest are always almost similar (Ginart&Park1997). QN. 2 Artificial Intelligence Artificial intelligence is the knowledge and intelligence exhibited by machines or software (Brooks,1991). Knowledge is created in this field. It is highly technical and specialized. Some knowledge is based on solving particular problems and as such the central problems or goals include reasoning, planning, and general intelligence are still among the long-term objectives. Artificial intelligence is founded on the claim that a human beings intelligence can be simulated and copied, and a machine made to emulate it. As such, the machine will be able to use logic and mathematical knowledge to perform functions such as calculations and sensors in the case of machines that can be able to detect things such as climate and the likes. How do we interact with AI every day? Artificial intelligence is slowly creeping into our day to day lives. Intelligent technology has become part of us. At this time and age, almost everything that we do is technologically inspired. Technology has made our lives easier. People use technology to nearly every function and day to day activities (Brooks,1991). Sometimes we do not even realize that we are using technology. The simple things we do have been enhanced by technology and innovations. A good example of this is the phone. These days the mobile phone acts as a watch, calendar, camera, a map location navigator and generally performs the sole purpose of making and receiving calls. The simple machines use artificial intelligence such as a remote controller used for turning on a television, changing channels and even turning off the television. In the kitchen, one uses quite a number of components which use artificial intelligence without even knowing it. Programming an oven by just calling it over the phone is an example of an application of artificial intelligence. Computer games also majorly use this information. Tasks and benefits that we have we assigned to AI programs Some roles have been assigned to artificial intelligence programs. These tasks are better done when using these programs and as such are mostly done using these programs. These tasks may include; Automated teller machines. This is tools which do not require human beings to operate them. One just needs pressing digits to automate some commands and the computer will respond in accordance with the power given, e.g., dispensing cash or depositing it. These tools are beneficial as they make access to cash in banks very easy. It is also the time-saving as one does not have to line up in the bank for his money to be dispensed by a teller. In the mobile phone industry, the mobile operators have widely been used to replace humans. When a subscriber cannot be reached, the mobile operator program is automatically set off consequently notifying the caller of the absence. Most mobile services use this automatic program to carry out their functions. Dangerous activities have also been left to machines which use artificial intelligence. Such include detonation of bombs and even missiles. These machines are programmed to detonate at a specific point or time and as such do not affect any human beings How artificial intelligence could spell out the end of the human race in future According to Stephen hawking, artificial intelligence could spell out the end of the human race. He agrees that the technological development has made the significant change and have been very useful to people, but he warns that these developments could someday surpass or match humans causing a threat to our very existence. He argues that since most jobs, even the simplest such as washing utensils can be undertaken by machines, the machines cause a significant threat to millions of jobs thus we are looking at an imminent potential high rate of loss of employment. The consequences of this can just be imagined. Without a source of income, surviving will be hard, and it wont be a wonder if people start dying of hunger. Some scientists do not agree with this and thank artificial intelligence for various milestones such as artificial voice box for the people who have been affected be throat cancer. Stephen argues that we cannot be sure of what will happen if a machine exceeding human intelligence is created. We cannot be certain if it will be of help to the human race or if it will have to end up in destruction of the human race. Personally, I think that artificial intelligence is a necessary evil. Some of the benefits attributed to it cannot be undermined. The lie detector is a most common device used by the police in developed countries. It can be able to detect if the culprits are innocent or guilty as charged and this is an imperative milestone. We should, however, put limits on the rate at which we improve the intelligence of machines. Making tools with a higher intelligence quotient than us will ultimately lead to adverse effects since the machines will take up most of our jobs and hence when the levels of unemployment increase so will adverse repercussions such as lack of money to buy food. Benefits will accrue if the technology is focused on particular places such as the health sector. If a robot can be equipped with sufficient knowledge to carry out surgery entirely, human error will be a rare occurrence and more lives will be saved. As such, it is evident that artificial intelligence poses both a positive and a negative impact on the individual lives for future generations. References Brooks, R. A. (1991). Intelligence without representation. Artificial intelligence, 47(1), 139-159. Bowyer, K. W. (1990). Ethics and computing. IEEE Computer. Russell, S., Norvig, P., & Intelligence, A. (1995). A modern approach. Artificial Intelligence. Prentice-Hall, Egnlewood Cliffs, 25. Ginarte, J. C., & Park, W. G. (1997). Determinants of patent rights: A cross-national study. Research policy, 26(3), 283-301. Sherry, E. F., & Teece, D. J. (2004). Royalties, evolving patent rights, and the value of innovation. Research Policy, 33(2), 179-191. Read More