AI: The beginning, evolution, and impact.
Given the current situation, when AI is helping us fight the deadly COVID-19, it is causing many experts to express their concern over the rapid development in this field. Today AI is directly or indirectly impacting our lives in some of the other ways: From refining the Google search results to arranging our tasks and setting reminders, AI is undoubtedly an essential part of our life and it is valid to study the way it impacts our lives whether good or bad.
In this post, we will try to find answers to some general questions: How AI came into existence? How does it evolve and impacts our life?
The Beginning….
According to techopedia, “Artificial intelligence (AI), also known as machine intelligence, is a branch of computer science that aims to imbue software with the ability to analyze its environment using either predetermined rules and search algorithms, or pattern recognizing machine learning models, and then make decisions based on those analyses.”
Many experts believe that Sir Alan Turing, a British mathematician, and computer scientist renowned for decrypting the mighty machine “Enigma” is the pioneer of AI.
The term “artificial intelligence” was formally coined at a conference at Dartmouth College, in Hannover, New Hampshire.
After a major winter from 1987 to 1993, ultimately in 1997, Deep Blue by IBM defeated the chess champion and Russian grandmaster Garry Kasparov. In 2011, the computer giant’s question-answering system Watson won the quiz show “Jeopardy!” by beating reigning champions, Brad Rutter and Ken Jennings.
In fact, this incident marked the beginning of rapid development in this field that is evident by the creation of AlphaGo created by Deepmind, Watson by IBM and many more.
The Evolution…
To understand the impact, we have to study the pattern of AI’s evolution.
The journey of AI, which began with six goals, is gradually being achieved today. Mankind has always witnessed AI performing tasks ranging from identifying the objects in the video to operating the self-driving cars. Today many tech-giants like Tesla, Google, and Amazon are striving hard to achieve the AGI or artificial general intelligence which remains a distant dream without proper strategy and planning.
Since it’s inception in 1956, AI’s evolution has been the most controversial topic for debate.
A report from sciencehabit states:
Researchers have successfully created the AI programs based on Sir Charles Darwin’s evolution principle “survival of the fittest”. The programs are designed to improve generation after generation without any input from human. According to the magazine — “he program replicated decades of AI research in a matter of days, and its designers think that one day, it could discover new approaches to AI”.
It is build on cyclic approach in which the program compares its performance against the hand-designed algorithms. Most favorable feature is added to the algorithm by editing, replacing, and deleting few lines of code. In other words, the algorithm adds all the missing features essential to leverage its performance and efficacy.
The Impact….
The images shown above depict human supervising the AI(robots) and humans being guided by the AI(robots). Though this seems fictional, the reality coincides with this. We might imagine that it is something only the tech giants focus on, and AI doesn’t impact our lives. But the truth is it does even more than we can imagine. Here are some examples of how AI is already an intrinsic part of our daily routine.
- Siri (Apple users can relate)
It’s more of a morning ritual to ask “Hey Siri !!! What is the current temperature? ”. Some people tend to ask some illogical questions to which the Siri gives incessant replies. In other words, it is programmed to be both intelligent and smart.
2. Social media
After unlocking their phones, what’s next? Many people check out their social media accounts, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and more, to get updated on what happened overnight. Not only is artificial intelligence working behind the scenes to personalize what you see on your feeds (because it’s learned what types of posts most resonate with you based on past history), it’s figuring out friend suggestions, identifying and filtering out fake news and machine learning is working to prevent cyber bullying.
4. Google search
Most of us can’t go a day without searching Google for an answer or a product we can’t live without. Search engines couldn’t scan the entire internet and deliver what you want without the assistance of artificial intelligence.
5. Smart home devices
Our homes are increasingly becoming “smart.” Many of us now have “smart” thermostats such as the Nest that learn about our heating/cooling preferences and daily habits to adjust the temperature to our liking in time for our return home.
Conclusion….
So it is nearly impossible to imagine our lives without but at the same time we should keep in mind that if we become increasingly dependent on technology then it dominates our life.
Spoiler….
In the upcoming article, we will discuss the impact in more details and try to find the answer to an important question.
Is there a requirement to double-check the AI algorithms before deployment?
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