Artificial Intelligence: A Glimpse of the Future

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the simulation of human intelligence processes by machines, especially by computers. The very familiar Google’s voice assistant, Microsoft’s Cortana and Apple’s Siri are some of the key examples of application of AI. Face recognition feature rolled out by Facebook very recently will help us in protecting and bringing the unauthorized use of our pictures into notice by someone else.

It is not that AI came into existence overnight. It is indeed never easy to teach a machine the cognitive nature of human beings. While thought-capable artificial beings appeared as storytelling devices in the ancient time, the idea of actually trying to build something to perform useful reasoning may have begun with Ramon Llul. With his Calculus ratiocinator, Gottfried Leibniz extended the concept of the calculating machine intending to perform operations on concepts rather than numbers.

Since the 19^th century, artificial beings are common in fiction. Alan Turing, a name that is so attached with computational history has also made significant contributions towards the development of AI in the past. His theory of computation suggesting that a machine, by simply shuffling the binaries, could simulate any conceivable act of mathematical deduction. The first word that is now generally recognised as AI was McCullouch and Pitts’ (1943) formal design for Turing complete “artificial neurons”. Due to the ongoing pressure from the US congress to fund more productive products, both the U.S. and British governments cut off exploratory research in AI. The next few years were then called and “AI winter”, a period when obtaining the funding for AI projects was difficult. In the late ‘90s and early ‘00s, AI began to be used for logistics, data mining, medical diagnosis etc. ‘Deep Blue’ became the first chess-playing computer to beat a reigning world chess champion, Garry Kasparov on 11^th of May, 1997.

So, how do these work?

Artificial Intelligence most often revolves around the use of algorithm. A complex algorithm is often built on the top of the other, simpler,algorithms. Many devices involving AI are capable of learning from data as well. They can work out strategies for newer problems which worked well in the past or can write algorithms on their own.

Want to know recent developments in this field? – Well, keep reading, about to finish now. 

The development in the field of AI is progressing in rapid gallops. In these almost automated days, many of the positions occupied by manual handlers previously have been replaced by robots, which employ the Artificial Intelligence fed inside their CPU.

“Time is money” – This concept is largely influenced by the advent of computing technologies. It has reached such a stage that we can make phone calls, text someone and even set our alarms without even making a physical contact with the mobile phone. Not just this, maps shows us our way to destination listening to our voice commands these days.

Let me dig into some major breakthroughs in AI industry now. Recently, news from Facebook Inc., Silicon Valley made awe worldwide as they shut down their AI chatbots. This is due to the making up of totally new code words, without any human help, to make communication efficient which was initially sounding gibberish to all but was later confirmed that the code made absolute sense.

Similar incident happened in 2016, when Google Translate quietly invented its own system to match languages without supervision.

Sophia, the humanoid robot made by Hanson Robotics which was also talked about a lot some months back, was also among one of the wonders of AI. Self driving cars and Drone logistic services are going to be rolled out soon making use of The Technology.

The way in which development in this field is progressing, we can be sure of some mind boggling inventions soon. Robots are already taking over most of the hazardous jobs, including bomb diffusing. They perform tasks like welding in toxic environment and protect us from the fumes. As technology improves, we will likely see more AI integration to help these machines function. Because of their capability to store vast amount of data and having access to it, AI could one day identify trends and suggest solutions for major environmental hazards as well. Pepper - the companion robot, capable of sensing human emotions had already made its mark by selling 1000 units within a minute.

While we are moving towards a fully automated world, the assumptions made by prominent personalities scare us as well. Stephen Hawking opined “Artificial Intelligence could spell the end of human race” while Bill Gates showed concern towards people not paying heed towards its the potential threats. Elon Musk’s “Summoning the Demon” statement cannot be rated less. These statements by the eminent ones surely give us a momentary fright that might last long if emphasized upon.

But everything that prevails on this earth has inherited within it the merits as well as demerits. We the human beings, are the creators of our own destiny. A look-around at our surrounding has always made us aware of our capabilities but at the same time better results would be achieved if the potential of The Technology is rated optimally before experimenting.

Thank you for reading. Hope I didn’t bore you. Do comment on what you think about the potential risks and rewards of making use of Artificial Intelligence. If you want to spread my words, consider using any one of the button below.

Thank you ;)