Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a word that tech specialists and others in the industry have been throwing around for a while now. back in the day it was used as a solution to all man’s problems in the future and in the case of sci-fi movies the cause for creation of new ones.
That future is here already and slowly but surely AI seems to be taking up everyday tasks in the households and work spaces sometimes, without most consumers even having realized it. This article focuses on everything there is to know about Artificial Intelligence in a nutshell.
What is Artificial Intelligence?
Artificial Intelligence is a method of making a computer, a computer-controlled robot, or a software think intelligently like the human mind.
Experts look at artificial intelligence as a factor of production, which has the potential to introduce new sources of growth and change the way work is done across industries. Research has predicted AI to increase economic growth by an average of 1.7 percent across 16 industries by 2035 and increase labor productivity by 40% or more, thereby doubling economic growth in developed nations.
A brief History:
The word Artificial Intelligence was first coined by John McCarthy, an American computer scientist and cognitive scientist, during the first ever AI conference in 1956. It was not until 1969 that the first basic general-purpose mobile robot was built. Shakey the Robot was able to reason about its own actions whereas other robots would have to be instructed on each individual step of completing a larger task, Shakey could analyze commands and break them down into basic chunks by itself.
The next major victory for AI came when ‘Deep Blue’ a supercomputer designed by IBM defeated the world champion chess player at that time (Gary Kasparov) in a match. This essentially was the first step for computer scientists in proving that machines could be developed to do some cognitive tasks much
better than the human brain was able to. Today, we have speech recognition, robotic process automation (RPA), a dancing robot, smart homes, with much more to come.
Goals of AI according to Researchers.
Logical reasoning:
Computers can be programmed to do sophisticated tasks through AI programming.
Knowledge representation:
Machines can be made to do tasks and respond to circumstances with an almost human-like quality through a reflective programming language based on “human-computer symbiosis.”
Planning and Navigation:
Such as in self-driving cars, where they follow instructions to go from one location to another in the best route following safety measures.
Natural Language Processing:
Computers that can comprehend, and interact with people in human language.
Emergent Intelligence:
The vision for this goal is to have machines exhibit emotional intelligence and moral reasoning.
Common commercial uses of AI in businesses today:
Fraud detection in banking:
Through extensive data consisting of fraudulent and non-fraudulent transactions, the computer predicts if the new transaction is extensive data consisting of fraudulent and non-fraudulent transactions.
Online Customer Support
More and more businesses are using AI to respond to customer queries online through online customer support and voice messaging systems.
Cyber Security
Computer programs are being used to detect, adapt and respond to security threats online.
Virtual Assistants:
They collect information, interpret what is being asked, and supply the answer via fetched data. Some good examples of virtual assistants are Siri, Cortana, and Alexa.
Artificial Intelligence in the future
Considering the growing adoption and popularity of AI, we can imagine how things would change for humans in the future.
Automated transportation will become more common and affordable.
Robots could be programmed to do day to day tasks such as bring a cup of coffee, prepare reports, control home appliances, etc.
Smart homes and cities will be more common and affordable
Home robots will help older people with their day-to-day work. Japan, for instance, already has an in-depth program where they’ve begun to integrate robots to help. Tasks like contacting a doctor in case of emergency can now be done with AI.
Hazardous jobs such as bomb defusing will be taken over by robots.
In conclusion:
The race to bring out the best and most profitable in terms of AI has already begun and now is as good a time as any to invest in it. The current dynamics prove that people are becoming more and more comfortable with interacting with machines especially since Virtual Assistants like Siri and Alexa took households around the world by storm. It is also important to note that it is highly unlikely that machines will completely take over the need for humans in workplaces. If anything it will only promote the need for people to more highly skilled labour resulting in better pay grades.