AI: What do we mean by “Intelligence”?

I participated in a closed alpha test of an upcoming video game over the weekend. Issues I encountered and suggestions I had were shared with the developer and other testers via a private forum. In a closed alpha-test scenario community managers will usually be admin-ing the forums to proactively extract player feedback, learning more about anything from technical issues to UX.

Customer feedback is intangible gold that resides within a number of sources. With machine learning and natural language processing artificial intelligence (AI) is already capable of sifting through millions of user reviews to aggregate only the ‘valuable’ ones. Valuable user and/or customer feedback is used to guide research and development to better products which return greater benefits for the producers. Artificial intelligence making the intangible, tangible.

A broader example is the app market. We rate and review apps all the time! The same mechanisms used to aggregate recommended apps, videos or other media can also be used to intelligently inform the creators and developers of what you consume on ways to refine their offering(s) for stronger reviews. A feedback loop which, in theory, leads to better products and higher satisfaction. AI supported personal assistants can do your grocery shopping for you, pre-empt your next haircut appointment and pick out a fashionable autumn wardrobe styled and tailored for you.

It will be interesting to see what the future holds as AI assisting consumers to demand and AI that is assisting companies to supply both engage in more conversations with each other. Machines that learn are more intelligence, but their intelligence is artificial. How artificial intelligence is applied is the responsibility of those who created it; the machine or code that, for all intents and purposes, is ‘being clever’ by pre-empting your next need or desire for example. Our needs are continuously evolving and so new applications of AI will continuously emerge. It will be interesting to see how intelligent it is.