Artificial Intelligence — Is It A Fad Or Is It Here to Stay?

One of the most misinterpreted and misunderstood terms in technology is Artificial Intelligence. There have been several arguments and discussions on its benefits and risks on the human race. Before we proceed further, I want you to have a clear about what exactly AI is.

What is AI?

AI (Artificial Intelligence) is an interdisciplinary branch of computer science that builds smart machines that are capable of performing complex tasks that typically require human intelligence.

It is a wonderful concept that simulates human intelligence in machines by programming them to think like humans and mimic their actions.

When most people hear the term AI, the first thing they think of is robots. It is because the big-budget movies portray AI as robots with human-like characteristics. But AI has grown far beyond this. From SIRI to autonomous vehicles, AI is progressing rapidly. It uses a variety of approaches including Machine Learning and Deep Learning that create a paradigm shift in virtually every sector of the tech industry.

Categorization

It is further categorized into Weak AI and Strong AI.

Weak (Narrow) Artificial Intelligence:

It is designed to perform narrow tasks. Though it is able to simulate human consciousness, it lacks it. Let’s take an example to understand this.

Suppose, there’s a person in a room who is good at following instructions. While he doesn’t know how to speak Chinese, he speaks numerous sentences in Chinese just by listening to the instructions. To the person who is hearing him speak, he will appear to be a fluent Chinese speaker. Weak AI is similar to this scenario where machine intelligence is not equivalent to human intelligence.

It tends to be simple and is designed to carry out one particular job at a time such as facial recognition, internet searches, solving equations, personal assistants, etc.

Strong (General) Artificial Intelligence:

Theoretically, it portrays that machine intelligence is equivalent to human intelligence. It is designed specifically to carry out tasks that are complex, complicated, and more human-like. It is programmed in a way that doesn’t require human intervention for problem-solving. While weak AI simulates human cognition, strong AI actually has it. It is found in applications like hospital operating rooms, self-driven cars, and more.

Benefits of Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence is primarily focused on improving human lives by reducing stress. Let’s explore the various benefits it has in the house for you, me, and all of us.

1. Insight into Marketing and Business

The amount of data being generated on a daily basis is increasing rapidly making it impossible for humans to deal with it. It is where the importance of AI comes into the role. Raw data is, perhaps, the most important asset to transform the digital economy. If left untapped and unprocessed, it might become useless. AI provides insights into the business information so that the data can be used wisely to better the economy and growth.

2. Fraud Detection

Today, when there is a lot of competition in the air, the occurrence of fraudulent activities is not a surprise. AI detects fraud by analyzing data that has been previously recorded in a cognitive system. It tracks and traces the fraudulent actions even before they occur, thereby, ensuring data security.

3. Speedy Input and Management of New Information

Managing new data and recovering it at the need of the hour is a daunting task as far as human efforts are concerned. However, AI has simplified this task by fostering the rate of data input and recovery. The machines, today, arrange every single file systematically without any time wastage by the use of artificial intelligence.

4. Big Data Analysis

Decision-making is really important to achieve organizational goals within the stipulated time and budget. A minor error can cost a huge loss. Big data analysis ensures that the heap of data is analyzed properly before the decisions are taken. It helps to extract and compress raw information to assist in decision making.

5. Automated Systems

The introduction of AI in various industries has speedily transformed them into automated industries leading to minimization of errors and improvisation of production and growth.

6. 24/7 Availability

Unlike human beings, machines can be programmed to work for long hours without getting bored, distracted or tired. Machines do not require frequent breaks. Also, using artificial intelligence gives similar results as human efforts but in minimal time.

7. Error Reduction

The major benefit of using AI is the reduction in errors and an increase in accuracy and precision.

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Scope of Artificial Intelligence

A man’s fascination for science-fiction has led to the creation of some of the most intelligent robots, machines, and software. Artificial intelligence is growing rapidly and eventually, it will permeate every sphere of our lives.

The ultimate goal is to make computer programs that can solve problems without human intervention. So, if we talk about games, speech recognition, facial recognition, language recognition, robotics, etc., the scope is wide.

Now, let’s take a quick tour through what possibly could be the future of AI:

· Reinforcement Learning

· Change in Employment Sector

· Automated Transportation

· Caring for the Elderly

· Defense

· Movie Industry

For detailed information on these, you can visit here.

Once you understand the scope of AI, you will know it is not a fad, it is here to stay! Yes, it is here to bring a technological revolution.

AI vs Human Intelligence

There are various factors of comparison between AI and human intelligence, namely decision-making, energy efficiency, multitasking, and more. I will be using an image to display the tabular difference between the two.

Risks Associated with Artificial Intelligence

Though the scope of artificial intelligence is wide and that it has numerous benefits, there is an equal number of risks involved. Continue reading to find the major risks involved:

· If AI evolves, there are large chances that people might lose their jobs. Why? Because the automation of the whole of the systems will demand no human intervention.

· There have been many instances where AI has gone wrong. For example, the time when Twitter chatbot started spewing abusive comments, Facebook chatbots started interacting with each other in an alien language, and more. These instances force scientists to pay heed to safety issues.

The aforementioned problems are something that really needs to be worked on. I hope this article was helpful in giving a detailed insight into the topic of Artificial intelligence.