Artificial Intelligence - Can machines think?

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ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

CAN MACHINES THINK?  -ALAN TURING, 1950

It was with this simple question that Turing changed the course of technology. Turing’s paper on ‘’Computing Machinery and Intelligence’’ (1950) was what set the base for Artificial Intelligence.

Artificial Intelligence refers to the simulation of human intelligence in machines. In layman’s language it is that branch of computer science that aims to answer the question: Can machines think? It is an endeavor to replicate human intelligence in machines. It emphasizes traits of the human mind like problem-solving, learning and improving, decision making and so. Thus, the goals of AI include learning, reasoning, and perception.

So it can be phrased as the ability in machines to rationalize and accordingly take a particular action that has the best chance at achieving a specific goal.


HOW DOES ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE WORK


AI is based on the principle that human intelligence can be broken down into specific ways of working which can then be easily replicated by machines to execute tasks. With the use of algorithms and past data, computers learn how to respond to certain actions.  

With the advance in technology what previously used to define AI is deemed to be a general computer function for example calculators. AI is constantly advancing to serve different industries. 


APPLICATIONS OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE


The functionality of AI is really diverse. It has applications in various sectors and industries. It has utility in daily life, in our jobs, in the marketplace, and almost everywhere else nowadays. 

  1. In Education: AI-powered systems can assist various educational institutes in managing fair grading, improve responsiveness, fair admissions by putting the required criteria as an algorithm, budgeting, expense management, and many more.

  2. In Business: AI has many applications for the business world. Customer support has become really convenient with the use of AI (e.g. Chatbots). Other utilities include updating files, personalized advertisements and marketing messages, product recommendations and etc.

  3. In Healthcare: Detection of disease, managing chronic conditions, drug discovery, managing medical records,  X-rays, CT scans and many more tasks now don’t require human effort thanks to AI. AI is an ever-growing technology so in the future, even surgeries would be possible through machines.

  4. In Robotics: Although AI has applications in various day to day tasks, robotics is where AI is prominently acknowledged. Smartwatches, smart refrigerator, traffic lights, and many more command machinery is the result of AI. 


OTHER GENERAL APPLICATIONS OF AI ARE:

  • Social media: Post recommendation, ad recommendation, deletion of offensive comments and etc.

  • Digital assistants: Apple’s Siri, Amazon Alexa, Microsoft’s Cortana.

  • Self-driving/parking vehicles: Uses deep learning (a subset of AI) which enables the vehicles to recognize space around it and instructs the movement accordingly.

  • Email communications: Smart replies in Gmail and email filters like primary, social, promotional, spam and etc. 

  • Web searching: AI enables predictive search. EXAMPLE- when you type something on a search engine and below the text box several possible searches appear like if you type how to you get suggestions like how to swim, drive and etc.

  • Chatbots

  • Maps and directions

  • Facial recognition soft wares

  • Text to speech 


TYPES OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

  1. Artificial narrow Intelligence/Weak AI/ arrow AI: AI which has a narrow range of abilities. It is used to perform singular tasks. It mostly uses narrow language processing (NLP) to perform tasks. It is object-oriented i.e. focused on performing tasks at hand with the help of a given algorithm.

Example- Facial recognition, speech recognition, searching the internet, content recommendation, drones, prediction tools, etc.

  1. Artificial General Intelligence/ Strong AI/ Deep AI: AI which is on par with human intelligence. It is that category of AI where the machine is expected to mimic human intelligence and to think, analyze, and act to a given situation in a way that is indistinguishable from that of a human. 

  2. Artificial Superintelligence (ASI): It is a hypothetical form of AI which is expected to surpass human abilities. It doesn’t just replicate human intelligence, it learns analyses, and improves upon it. It is what we see in various dystopian novels and movies that machines become self-aware. It is expected to not just understand human emotions and experiences but to develop needs, emotions, and desires of its own. Its problem-solving capability is supposed to be far superior to that of humans.


AI’s rapid growth and powerful capabilities have made many paranoid about the inevitability and proximity of an AI takeover. The questions that could robots take over the world have started to arise in the minds of many. Though it is too early to comment on a situation like that many esteemed like Elon Musk argue that we may not get to control an AI takeover and have to be extra careful in our quest for development and growth.


In a nutshell, AI influences our daily lives in many more ways than we probably ourselves are aware of. It’s easy to imagine when we talk about AI that robots have enslaved us or the evil machines from dystopian movies have omen to life but AI is actually a way to enable people to accomplish more by collaborating with smart software.





ARTICLE BY: AASTHA SONI
EDITED BY: AASTHA SONI



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