Artificial Intelligence : A brief introduction to how AI is affecting our daily lives.
What is Artificial Intelligence (AI)?
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a transformative field of computer science that aims to create intelligent machines capable of mimicking human cognitive functions. It encompasses a broad spectrum of technologies, including machine learning, natural language processing, and computer vision. The goal of AI is to enable machines to perceive, reason, learn, and make decisions, often with increasing autonomy. AI applications are diverse, ranging from virtual personal assistants and recommendation systems to advanced robotics and autonomous vehicles. As AI continues to evolve, its impact on various industries, from healthcare and finance to manufacturing and entertainment, is becoming increasingly profound. While offering unprecedented opportunities for innovation and efficiency, AI also raises ethical considerations, such as privacy concerns, bias in algorithms, and the potential displacement of certain jobs. The ongoing development and responsible deployment of AI technologies are critical to harnessing their benefits while addressing potential challenges. AI is the technique of getting machines to work and behave like humans. In the recent past AI has been able to accomplish this by creating machines and robots that a been used in a wide range of fields including
However many AI applications are not perceived as AI because we often tend to think of artificial intelligence as robots doing our daily course but the truth is artificial intelligence has found its way into our daily lives it has become so general that we don't realize we use it all the time for instance have you ever wondered how google is able to give you such accurate search results? Or how your facebook feed always gives you content based on your interest? The answer to these questions is artificial intelligence. Before we go any further let me clear a very common misconception people often tend to think that artificial intelligence, machine learning and deep learning are the same since they have common applications, they are not.
Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Deep Learning
Artificial intelligence is the science of getting machines to mimic the behavior of humans. Machine learning is a subset of AI that focuses on getting machines to make decisions by feeding them data. On the other hand deep learning is a subset of machine learning that uses the concept of neural networks to solve complex problems. To sum it up, artificial intelligence, machine learning and deep learning are interconnected fields. Machine learning and deep learning aids artificial intelligence by providing a set of algorithms and neural networks to solve data-driven problems. However AI is not restricted to only machine learning and deep learning it covers a vast domain of fields including
Artificial intelligence can be structured along three evolutionary stages or you can say that there are three different types of artificial intelligence
Artificial narrow intelligence
Artificial general intelligence
Finally artificial super-intelligence
Artificial narrow intelligence which is also known as weak AI involves applying artificial intelligence only to specific tasks. Many currently existing systems that claim to use artificial intelligence are operating as a weak AI, focused on a narrowly defined specific problem. Alexa is a very good example of narrow intelligence as it operates within a limited pre-defined range of functions. There is no genuine intelligence or no self-awareness despite being sophisticated.Other few examples of weak AI would be :
Face Recognition that you see in your iphone,
Autopilot feature at tesla
The social humanoid sophia
Google maps
All of these applications are based on weak AI or artificial narrow intelligence. Let's now take a look at artificial general intelligence. Artificial general intelligence is also known as strong AI. It involves machines that possess the ability to perform any intellectual task that a human being can. Since generally machines don't possess human-like abilities they have a strong processing unit that can perform high-level computations but they are not yet capable of thinking and reasoning like a human. There are many experts who doubt that artificial general intelligence will ever be possible and there are also many who question whether it should be desirable. Even stephen hawking has warned us that strong AI would take off on its own and redesign itself at ever-increasing rate. Humans who are limited by slow biological evolution couldn't compete and would be superseded. Now, if we talk about artificial superintelligence, this is a term that refers to the time when the capabilities of computers will surpass human beings or as a hypothetical situation as depicted in movies and science fiction books where machines will take over the world.
How AI works in our everyday life
Now that we have covered types of AI we can discuss a bit about how AI works in our everyday life as its application. Every day AI helps people with their personal lives, jobs, transportation, education, health and more, maybe even without them realizing it. Here are some examples of AI in action.
On a typical day, in the morning a teenager wakes up and uses facial recognition to unlock her phone. She scrolls through social media feeds to see what's new. Then she asks the voice assistant on her phone what the weather's going to be like that day so she knows how to dress for school.
A college student uses an app on his phone to deposit a birthday cheque from his grandmother. He takes a photo of the cheque and the app automatically reads the handwriting to figure out the amount. It then deposits it into his account. A younger student uses a different app that is teaching her a new language. Many AI powered apps listen to what we say and can recognise our language even if we make mistakes. These apps even then give us personalized feedback on our pronunciation.
In navigation systems when a person gets in their car to go to work and the navigation system plans the fastest route based on current traffic. In the car he listens to a music streaming service which already knows what types of songs he likes based on what he has listened to before.
When a factory worker arrives at her job, she sees that as usual humans and robots are both assembling cars. The robots do some of the more dangerous or repetitive tasks like welding or painting. AI helps the robots recognise the tools they need to pick up or check parts to make sure they have been cut exactly right when the cars are completed computers help manage inventory and plan efficient shipping routes to deliver them around the world.
A farmer, who's checking on her crops. She notices that some of her plants look unhealthy. She pulls out her smartphone and uses an app to take a photo of the leaves the app can detect crop disease and also identify harmful insects. The app identifies the problem and recommends treatment.
In healthcare when a surgeon uses AI to help make a medical diagnosis for a patient and then a robot helps her perform a successful surgery. Afterwards she goes to visit patients in a nursing home where robots gently lift seniors in and out of bed and help them move around.
A traveler needs to book a flight to another city. An automated customer service chatbot helps him book his ticket on the phone. Once he's on board, the autopilot flies the plane for much of the flight. AI is even used in space on the international space station. An astronaut talks to a free floating robot that helps with chores and does jobs that are risky for humans.
I hope the next time you think about, what AI actually is, you will have a better perspective.
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