Thanks to recent developments, Artificial intelligence has been the subject of widespread speculation and arguable deserved acclaim. It isn't altogether inconceivable however, how such a technology can cause such a buzz given the impact it has already had across industries. The underlying assumption in AI research as proposed by researchers during the Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence is that "every aspect of learning or any other feature of intelligence can in principle be so precisely described that a machine can be made to simulate it." On that assumption, the human mind then becomes a stencil whereby a relatively accurate copy of the genuine article can be developed with sets of algorithms and code.
Though at present AI is virtually incomparable to the versatile labyrinth of intellect which is the human mind, it has proved rather effective. So effective in fact that one might go so far as to say it has threatened to render some job titles superfluous. Take for example autonomous vehicles; every major car manufacturer is making strides towards perfecting the self driving car formula.
Taxi companies like Uber in the US have long began testing self-driving cars for their taxi service signaling what might be the end of taxi driving as an occupation. Not everything has been rosy in autonomous car research however. In 2016 a man was killed in a road traffic accident involving the Model s an autonomous car manufactured by Tesla which he'd put in autopilot mode. The car failed to detect the trailer of a truck on the intersection and rammed into it. Clearly it's going to take a while before we see fully autonomous cars driving freely through our streets. So, has the fuse been lit on the taxi driving profession? Only time will tell.
AI in healthcare
Of all the fields in which AI has proved relevant, medicine is perhaps the most important. Accordingly it has not been neglected in the AI "revolution". AI has been useful in diagnosis, developing treatment protocols, drug creation, personalized medicine development and patient monitoring and care and many others. However, what may standout as one of the most prominent developments thus far might be in cancer diagnosis. In recent experiments It was shown that AI technology was better at detecting cancer than medical specialists. This was all made possible thanks to a process known as deep learning which Google and other organizations have been researching.
AI and IoT
Thanks to AI, another whole new level of connectivity is made possible.The internet of things (IoT) according to Techopedia, is a computing concept that describes the idea of everyday physical objects being connected to the internet and being able to identify themselves to other devices. Simply put, all your electronics are connected and can communicate to each other which is all the result of integrating AI technology. From your smart fridge to your smart phone to your sound system to your printer to your car down to the last programmable gizmo in your house or place of work. This eliminates a large part of human intervention in performing generally mundane tasks which machines can carry out seamlessly.
AI in Finance
Perhaps the most predominant way AI is being employed today is through finance, Market Analysis and data mining. Ever given thought to how the social media content, search engine search results and ads you see online seem be neatly tailored to you, well, they are. A lot of the text you've typed online and other information available in your social media and other accounts on the web are sifted through by "autonomous" programs in a process known as data mining and relevant data are used as inputs to tailor content to you.But not everyone is impressed with AI it seems. Elon Musk the CEO of SpaceX and Tesla has reservations about the subject and he's been vocal about it.
Speaking during the National Governors Association Summer Meeting in Providence, Rhode Island, on July 15, 2017, Elon Musk had this to say, "AI is a fundamental existential risk for human civilization," he went on to give a hypothetical scenario where a stock-trading program orchestrated a missile strike like the one that that took down the Malaysian airliner over Ukraine in 2014 all in a bid to manipulate financial markets. Although, some experts like Pedro Domingos, a professor who works on machine learning at the University of Washington, dismissed his misgivings as ill-informed citing the difference between real dangers and imaginary dangers
The applications of artificial intelligence are vast; facial recognition, personal virtual assistants on your smartphones, gesture recognition, voice recognition, video games the list goes on. Being so versatile it's effects are far reaching. With the right approach, AI can solve a lot of the problems we face today all the while promising high returns. At least that's what investors seem to think. In 2016 alone, between $26 and $39 billion was poured into AI research. With that in mind we can rest assured it won't be going away anytime soon.
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