What is artificial intelligence?

The artificial intelligence is nothing but an imitation of the human intelligence process with the help of machines, i.e the computer systems. The process comprises of learning, reasoning and also self-correction. The basic application of AI includes the expert systems, recognition of speech and also machine vision. John McGarthy, the American computer scientist in 1956, first coined the term. The Dartmouth Conference forms the birthplace of this discipline.  The functionalities of AI include: identifying the patterns in the data, more efficiently than humans, enabling the business to gain better insight out of their data.

Different types of Artificial Intelligence:

Here are two basic examples of AI:

Weak AI: Also known as narrow AI, this AI system is mainly designed to perform a particular task. Apple’s Siri is a good example of AI.

Strong AI: Also known as artificial general intelligence, this system has generalized human cognitive abilities. When it comes to performing unfamiliar tasks, it has enough intelligence to find a solution. Alan Turing, the mathematician performs the Turing Test, stating whether a computer can think like a human. Though the method is controversial.

Arend Hintz, the assistant professor of integrative biology and also computer science and engineering categorizes AI in four types:

Reactive Machines: Deep Blue, the IBM chess program is a good example. This can easily identify the pieces on the chessboard and also have the ability to predict. But it has no memory and is unable to use past experience to inform the future ones. Deep Blue is basically designed for the narrow purpose. We are unable to apply it to another situation.

Limited Memory: With the help of this AI, past experiences can be used to inform future decisions. Some of the decision-making functions in autonomous vehicles are designed in this way. The observations are used to inform actions that are happening in the not so distant future like a car that has changed lanes. One cannot store these observations permanently.

Theory of Mind: A psychological term, this is actually an understanding that every individual has his own beliefs, desires, and intentions that affects their decisions. However, this kind of AI doesn’t exist yet.

Self-Awareness: AI systems in this category have a sense of self-consciousness. Machines with self-awareness are able to understand the current state. It uses the information to infer what others are feeling. This type of AI doesn’t exist yet.

Examples of AI technology

Automation: This is the process, making the system or process function automatically. For example, the robotic process automation can be programmed for performing high volume, repeatable tasks, which are normally performed by humans. Different from IT automation, this is adaptable to changing circumstances.

Machine vision: Machine vision always captures and analyzes visual information with the use of a camera, analog to digital information conversion and even digital signal processing. This can be easily compared with human eyesight. But we cannot bind a machine vision with the use of biology. You can easily program this through see through walls.

Natural Language processing: NLP is the human process and not a computer language. The best-known example of NLP is the spam detection. The recent approaches to NLP are totally based on machine learning. NLP tasks consist of text translation, sentiment analysis and also speech recognition.

Pattern recognition: This is a branch of machine learning, which focus on identifying the pattern of data.

Robotics: This is a field of engineering which focuses on design and manufacturing of robots. Robots are able to perform those tasks, which we are unable to perform as a human being. Researchers use machine learning for building robots, which easily interacts in social settings.

Applications of AI

Healthcare: This improves the patient outcomes and reduces the costs. The best-known healthcare technologies are IBM Watson. This helps in the understanding the natural language and even responds to the questions asked for. This helps in mining patient data and also other data sources that are available to form a hypothesis. The other AI applications are chatbots, this online computer program is used to answer the questions thus assisting the customers for scheduling the follow-up appointment and aid patients with the help of billing process and virtual health assistant thus providing basic medical feedback.

Education: AI can easily automate grading, and give the educators more time. AI helps in assessing the students and adapt to their needs. It also helps them to work at their own pace. It helps in providing additional support to students and ensures that they stay on their own track. AI can easily change place and method of student learning and even replaces some teachers.

Finance: AI is applicable to personal finance like Mint or Turbo Tax. Applications like this enable collecting personal data and providing the financial advice. Programs like IBM Watson are one that is applied for buying a home.

Law: This discovery process comes after scrutinizing the documents in legal matters. The process is really overwhelming for humans. If this process is automated then it enables an efficient use of timing and the process even becomes a better one.

Manufacturer: The manufacturing area has been in the limelight so as to include the robots in the workflow. The industrial robots are mainly used for performing the single task. These were separated from the human workers. With the advancement, this has changed.