Artificial Intelligence
These days TV ads, particularly related to mobile phones, are focusing on one or the other Artificial Intelligence (AI) feature like AI based camera as a marketing strategy to lure customers. AI was considered a concept of science-fiction for decades were gossips about machines that can talk, machines that can think and machines that can feel were prevalent only in films, television and science fiction novels. But now the concept seems gaining great momentum and has become a reality and is slowly finding place in diverse fields ranging from mobile phones to healthcare.
A news report citing the reference of Oncology Journal was published in The Guardian stated that ‘Computers learn to detect skin cancer more accurately than doctors’ (report published on 28th May 2018). Before proceeding to the application part, let us try to understand the concept and nuances of Artificial Intelligence (AI).
Artificial intelligence is the simulation of human intelligence processes by machines, especially computer systems. These processes include learning (the acquisition of information and rules for using the information), reasoning (using the rules to reach approximate or definite conclusions) and self-correction. In simple terms Artificial Intelligence is a way of making a computer, a computer-controlled robot, or a software think intelligently, in the similar manner the intelligent humans think. According to the father of Artificial Intelligence, John McCarthy, it is “The science and engineering of making intelligent machines, especially intelligent computer programs”.AI is accomplished by studying how human brain thinks, and how humans learn, decide, and work while trying to solve a problem, and then using the outcomes of this study as a basis of developing intelligent software and systems. These machines are programmed to “think” like a human and mimic the way a person acts. Artificial intelligence (AI) makes it possible for machines to learn from experience, adjust to new inputs and perform human-like tasks. Most AI examples that we hear about today are chess-playing computers, self-driving cars which rely heavily on deep learning and natural language processing. Using these technologies, computers can be trained to accomplish specific tasks by processing large amounts of data and recognizing patterns in the data. Stanford researcher John McCarthy coined the term in 1956 during what is now called The Dartmouth Conference, where the core mission of the AI field was defined. Arthur Samuel was the first to write AI game program to challenge a world champion, in part due to learning. Artificial intelligence is dependent on other disciplines such as Computer Science, Biology, Psychology, Linguistics, Mathematics, and Engineering. The Goal of AI is enabling machines to learn and think as much like humans as possible by:
- Creating Expert Systems which exhibit intelligent behavior, learn, demonstrate, explain, and advice its users.
- Creating systems that understand, think, learn, and behave like humans.
How Artificial Intelligence Works
AI works by combining large amounts of data with fast, iterative processing and intelligent algorithms, allowing the software to learn automatically from patterns or features in the data. Machine learning, deep learning and neural networks form the basis of its working.
Applications of AI
Artificial Intelligence finds applications in diverse fields ranging from gaming to healthcare .Some of them are −
- Gaming− AI plays crucial role in strategic games such as chess, poker, tic-tac-toe, etc., where machine can think of large number of possible positions based on heuristic knowledge.
- Natural language processing(NLP)- is the ability of computers to analyze, understand and generate human language, including speech. The next stage of NLP is natural language interaction, which allows humans to communicate with computers using normal, everyday language to perform tasks.
- Expert Systems–which provide explanation and advice to the users by integrating machine, software, and special information to impart reasoning. and advising.
- Vision Systemswhich can understand, interpret, and comprehend visual input on the computer. For example,
- A spying aeroplane takes photographs, which are used to figure out spatial information or map of the areas.
- Doctors use clinical expert system to diagnose the patient.
- Police use computer software that can recognize the face of criminal with the stored portrait made by forensic artist.
- Speech Recognition− Some intelligent systems are capable of hearing and comprehending the language in terms of sentences and their meanings while a human talks to it. It can handle different accents, slang words, noise in the background, change in human’s noise due to cold, etc.
- Handwriting Recognition software reads the text written on paper by a pen or on screen by a stylus. It can recognize the shapes of the letters and convert it into editable text.
- Intelligent Robots− Robots are able to perform the tasks given by a human. They have sensors to detect physical data from the real world such as light, heat, temperature, movement, sound, bump, and pressure. They have efficient processors, multiple sensors and huge memory, to exhibit intelligence. In addition, they are capable of learning from their mistakes and they can adapt to the new environment.
- Health Care –AI applications can provide personalized medicine and X-ray readings. Personal health care assistants can act as life coaches, reminding you to take your pills, exercise or eat healthier. Artificial intelligence is breaking into the healthcare industry by assisting doctors. According to Bloomberg Technology, Microsoft has developed AI to help doctors find the right treatments for cancer.
Artificial intelligence is not here to replace us but to augment our abilities and make us better at what we do and the goal of AI is to provide software that can reason on input and explain on output. Recently Google demonstrated how ‘Medical Brain’ AI can be used to predict when a patient will die or death risks associated and mobile phone assistants like Siri and Google Assistant have become smarter due to the researches done on AI which was considered a science fiction just a few years ago. AI will provide human-like interactions and offer decision support for specific tasks, but it’s not a replacement for humans and won’t be anytime soon.
