Artificial Intelligence (AI) in Laymen's Terms

in #technology7 years ago

It is time again to help the non-technical users to understand some technology what usually seems very difficult to understand. I have written a few posts to assist our non-technical or let's say the technology challenged.

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What is Artificial Intelligence?

Well, as human beings we always want to build the best things that we can. And for some reason we want to build machines that thinks like us. We all have our own opinions if it is a good idea or not, but it is going to happen. There is no stopping it as we as the human race are chasing this dream. And we are chasing it hard. If you mentioned the word Artificial Intelligence just 10 years ago, it would probably have been laughed off or you would've referred to some or other sci-fi movie.

This has definitely changed as today, Artificial Intelligence is being researched and developed by most of the large information technology houses in the world. IBM has Watson, an AI platform aimed at the business market. Watson has already won the jeopardy programme when it played against two Jeopardy champions way back in 2011. It does not seem that long ago but in AI terms 4 or 5 years is very long ago. Microsoft has Cortana and Apple has Siri, who aims to learn our day to day personalities which will in the end assist us with our daily lives as it learns our personalities.

Even Google and Facebook has so many algorithms that attempts to learn our surfing patterns, to at the end enable them to target advertising to our needs.

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The branches of AI

AI is becoming so advanced that it has branched into two distinct practices. The first branch is what is called APPLIED AI, which uses specific principles to simulate human thought to do a very specific task. The second branch is labelled "GENERALISED AI", and in this case it tries to do develop specific machine intelligence which can perform any or many tasks.

All of this is being done to simulate the human thought process. A key aspect or input to Artificial Intelligence, is what is called Machine Learning, which I have written about a few months back. You can read the Machine Learning in Laymen's Terms post here. Machine Learning is such an integral part of Artificial Intelligence that some people are actually referring to Machine Learning when they are speaking about Artificial Intelligence.

This is however not the same thing. Machine learning is the basis tools that will be used to later create Artificial intelligence. Machine Learning is the underlying tech of the future AI. Instead of programming every line of instructions for a computer to perform specific tasks, Machine Learning will be used to program a computer, to learn our requirements by observing and learning what we do and require.

I really hope the In Laymen's Terms series will assist the non-technical users, to just know enough to have a conversation with the more technical people. Please try it. I can promise you if you speak to a generalist IT expert, and you mention that there is two branches in AI, most of them will not even know it :)

Sources for information of this post

Some of my other in Laymen's Terms Post.

Some of these posts have been written more than 10 Months ago :)

Blockchain and Digital Signatures - In Laymen's Terms
Trustless - What does it mean in laymen's terms?
Cyber Attacks explained in laymen's terms
Machine Learning - In laymen's terms
Internet of things and what it is in laymen's terms
Big data - What is it really about - In laymen’s terms

Happy Steeming!


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AI and Quantum computing are the most interesting fields in technology imho.

Indeed thanks for the comment :) @steemboys

Save us Elon! Lol

I think your idea of having a technology series that is easy to follow for non-technical people is ingenious. I loved this summary of artificial intelligence. I am excited for a world where we are able to have cheap robots do most of our jobs. I am also afraid that public policy will not be able to keep up with technology and that necessary changes (such as universal basic income) will not happen on time, causing suffering for middle and lower income classes.

Thanks for a great comment :) Followed Check out VIVACoin for Universal Basic income :)

The world will be unrecognizable in 10 years... Great post

Thanks and fully agree :)

Yesteday I met this seemingly crazy old Russian guy at the park who was talking up a storm about how his daughter which is some kind of scientist thinks AI's are going to take over the world. Anyway.

Thanks for sharing this, was an interesting read :)

Thanks for the comment @cappi :)

Hello. Excellent post. Follow me

I do not agree with this type of technology

Please follow Upvote or promote my account in this steemit, i really need it. Hopefully not ignored. Thanks , hope you easy sustenance @jacor

Hi, I see you are new to Steemit. Please make sure you do not comment to ask for votes as it will give you a bad reputation on Steemit. All the best and Welcome :). I hope you enjoy everyday on Steemit like we all do !

@jacor well said buddy!! Here many newbie steemiants those who are said upvote+follow to me. It's really disgusting they were don't know hardworking!! They were not thinking to build relationships with other steemiants!!

What do you think about Stephen Hawking's theory that AI will end the world i am curiuse ?

I have not read his theory but in my opinion it is very possible. I believe there is a point of no return. When we hit the point where AI is automated and machines or computers learn to think like we do, it will be like a switch. The end might come so quickly that we won't even realize that it happened.

That's exactly what i think !

awesome! I'm impressed. upvoted

welp, as someone who does understand a thing or two about machines, I hate the word AI. It is buzzword which is used to hype up programming by referring to ideas of 70s Sci-fi movies.

For me there are two schools of thought when it comes to AI:

Machine learning; a truly interesting subject. But why can't we use the more fitting term machine learning. Deep Blue is really old and has a really simple algorithm. There is no reason to bring the vague word AI into the convo.

Mimiking humans: People try to build robots that act and behave like humans. To me this is silly non-sense. We might not even be able to mimik the full potential of a human brain and if we do it get's dangerous because Skynet und Co.

So yeah, that is what I think of AI :3

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