Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) 

Of all the 9 elements that make up the Industry 4.0 eco-system. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is arguably the one element or domain that is receiving the most criticism. Elon Musk is on record as saying "AI is more dangerous than nukes..". Some Ted talk videos reveal that AI now remains limited and displays no more power than that of an earthworm, given its limited recognition and understanding of its contextual environment. 

Okay, so what is AI? Let's first understand what intelligence is? This relates to the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills learnt over time. Artificial intelligence would then relate to providing an inanimate object with a level of intelligence, such as machinery, computers and robots etc.  The objective with AI is to give the algorithm/s a goal or problem to solve and the system then tries to solve the problem. The more you 'feed it', the greater the chances of arriving at a consistent outcome. 

Medium, an online tech platform states that three types of artificial intelligence exist. These are:

• Artificial Narrow Intelligence (ANI)

This is typically associated with performing a single task of intelligence, which needs to be performed intelligently. Examples include speech recognition assistants such as google assist and Alexa and Internet bots

Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)

Here the intelligence can consider various tasks with efficiency and also have the ability to improve itself over time. Examples are 'AlphaGo', the 1st computer programme ever to beat a 'Go' player, autonomous driving vehicles and predictive analytics through deep machine learning

Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI)

Artificial Super Intelligence is an aspect of intelligence which is more powerful and sophisticated than human intelligence. This refers to the time when the capability of computers will surpass humans, in a world in which a computer's cognitive ability is superior to that of a human. We have not reached this stage and probably won't for many years to come, but this is probably the area that concerns Elon Musk the most. 

AI oracle and venture capitalist Dr Kai-Fu Lee believes that AI is going to change the world more than anything in the history of mankind. 

In 2017, Russian President Vladimir Putin told school children that “Whoever becomes the leader in AI will become the ruler of the world.

Whilst AI started evolving from the late 1950s already, it is now receiving more attention than ever before. Huge sums of monies are being deployed in research and technological entities. Everyone is talking about artificial intelligence these days. If one looks at searches and the mention of artificial intelligence online, one will see an exponential trend emerging. Almost all high-tech magazines, Developers, Engineers, Data Scientists, Journalists and Entrepreneurs are now talking about AI. 

Okay, so what impact would AI have on our lives? Let's consider the following applications.

- Transportation: autonomous, self-driving vehicles will eventually take us to all parts of the globe.

- Manufacturing: Intelligent robots and machines will be working alongside humans in a highly coordinated, and pre-emptive factory environment.

- Healthcare: rapid diagnosis of diseases and operation procedures at remote locations. 

- Education: digitised, interactive textbooks, that will include virtual online Tutors

- Media:“ using automated insights to screen and interpret large quantities of reports to identify trends.  

- Customer service: virtual assistants to intelligently manage call centres and queries etc. 

The demand for AI developers constantly grows, and some experts are even imagining a future where computers will replace humans. 

If you are interested in learning more about AI, a project was launched by Google (Google AI) to allow the general public to understand more about AI and how it works. The portal has a machine learning course for beginners that includes Google's TensorFlow library. This course will assist even those who know nothing about AI, covering the basics of machine learning, introducing TensorFlow, and explaining the crucial principles of designing neural networks etc.

In closing, just a thought for you to ponder. Is it by accident that the letters AI are included in brAIn and trAIn?