What Is Artificial Intelligence (AI)?

Artificial intelligence, or AI, refers to the simulation of human intelligence by software-

coded heuristics. Nowadays this code is prevalent in everything from cloud-based,
enterprise applications to consumer apps and even embedded firmware.

The year 2022 brought AI into the mainstream through widespread familiarity with
applications of Generative Pre-Training Transformer. The most popular applications
are OpenAI's DALL-E text-to-image tool and ChatGPT. The widespread fascination
with ChatGPT made it synonymous with AI in the minds of most consumers. However,
it represents only a small portion of the ways that AI technology is being used today.

The ideal characteristic of artificial intelligence is its ability to rationalize and take
actions that have the best chance of achieving a specific goal. A subset of artificial
intelligence is machine learning (ML), which refers to the concept that computer
programs can automatically learn from and adapt to new data without being assisted
by humans. Deep learning techniques enable this automatic learning through the
absorption of huge amounts of unstructured data such as text, images, or video.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

 Artificial intelligence (AI) refers to the simulation or approximation of human

intelligence in machines.
 The goals of artificial intelligence include computer-enhanced learning,
reasoning, and perception.
 AI is being used today across different industries from finance to healthcare.
 Weak AI tends to be simple and single-task oriented, while strong AI carries on
tasks that are more complex and human-like.
 Some critics fear that the extensive use of advanced AI can have a negative
effect on society.

Understanding Artificial Intelligence (AI)

When most people hear the term artificial intelligence, the first thing they usually think
of is robots. That's because big-budget films and novels weave stories about human-
like machines that wreak havoc on Earth. But nothing could be further from the truth.

Artificial intelligence is based on the principle that human intelligence can be defined in
a way that a machine can easily mimic it and execute tasks , from the most simple to
those that are even more complex. The goals of artificial intelligence include mimicking
human cognitive activity. Researchers and developers in the field are making
surprisingly rapid strides in mimicking activities such as learning, reasoning, and
perception, to the extent that these can be concretely defined. Some believe that
innovators may soon be able to develop systems that exceed the capacity of humans
to learn or reason out any subject. But others remain skeptical because all cognitive
activity is laced with value judgments that are subject to human experience.

As technology advances, previous benchmarks that defined artificial intelligence

become outdated. For example, machines that calculate basic functions or recognize
text through optical character recognition are no longer considered to embody artificial
intelligence, since this function is now taken for granted as an inherent computer
function.

AI is continuously evolving to benefit many different industries. Machines are wired

using a cross-disciplinary approach based on mathematics, computer science,
linguistics, psychology, and more.

Algorithms often play a very important part in the structure of artificial intelligence,
where simple algorithms are used in simple applications, while more complex ones
help frame strong artificial intelligence.

Applications of Artificial Intelligence

The applications for artificial intelligence are endless. The technology can be applied to
many different sectors and industries. AI is being tested and used in the healthcare
industry for suggesting drug dosages, identifying treatments, and for aiding in surgical
procedures in the operating room.

Other examples of machines with artificial intelligence include computers that play
chess and self-driving cars. Each of these machines must weigh the consequences of
any action they take, as each action will impact the end result. In chess, the end result
is winning the game. For self-driving cars, the computer system must account for all
external data and compute it to act in a way that prevents a collision.

Artificial intelligence also has applications in the financial industry , where it is used to
detect and flag activity in banking and finance such as unusual debit card usage and
large account deposits—all of which help a bank's fraud department. Applications for
AI are also being used to help streamline and make trading easier . This is done by
making supply, demand, and pricing of securities easier to estimate.

Types of Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence can be divided into two different categories: weak and
strong. Weak artificial intelligence embodies a system designed to carry out one
particular job. Weak AI systems include video games such as the chess example from
above and personal assistants such as Amazon's Alexa and Apple's Siri. You ask the
assistant a question, and it answers it for you.

Strong artificial intelligence systems are systems that carry on the tasks considered to
be human-like. These tend to be more complex and complicated systems. They are
programmed to handle situations in which they may be required to problem solve
without having a person intervene. These kinds of systems can be found in
applications like self-driving cars or in hospital operating rooms.

AGI
Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), refers to a proposed type of artificial intelligence
that has the ability to understand, learn, and apply its intelligence to a wide range of
problems, much like a human being. Unlike narrow or weak AI, which is designed to
perform specific tasks (like image recognition, language translation, or playing chess),
AGI can theoretically perform any intellectual task that a human being can--and more.

Special Considerations
Since its beginning, artificial intelligence has come under scrutiny from scientists and
the public alike. One common theme is the idea that machines will become so highly
developed that humans will not be able to keep up and they will take off on their own,
redesigning themselves at an exponential rate.

Another is that machines can hack into people's privacy and even be
weaponized. Other arguments debate the ethics of artificial intelligence and whether
intelligent systems such as robots should be treated with the same rights as humans.

Self-driving cars have been fairly controversial as their machines tend to be designed
for the lowest possible risk and the least casualties. If presented with a scenario of
colliding with one person or another at the same time, these cars would calculate the
option that would cause the least amount of damage.

Another contentious issue many people have with artificial intelligence is how it
may affect human employment. With many industries looking to automate certain
jobs through the use of intelligent machinery, there is a concern that people would be
pushed out of the workforce. Self-driving cars may remove the need for taxis and car-
share programs, while manufacturers may easily replace human labor with machines,
making people's skills obsolete.

The first artificial intelligence is thought to be a checkers-playing computer built by

Oxford University (UK) computer scientists in 1951.1

What Are 4 Types of AI?

Artificial intelligence can be categorized into one of four types:

 Reactive AI uses algorithms to optimize outputs based on a set of inputs.

Chess-playing AIs, for example, are reactive systems that optimize the best
strategy to win the game. Reactive AI tends to be fairly static, unable to learn or
adapt to novel situations. Thus, it will produce the same output given identical
inputs.
 Limited memory AI can adapt to past experience or update itself based on new
observations or data. Often, the amount of updating is limited (hence the name),
and the length of memory is relatively short. Autonomous vehicles, for example,
can "read the road" and adapt to novel situations, even "learning" from past
experience.
 Theory-of-mind AI are fully-adaptive and have an extensive ability to learn and
retain past experiences. These types of AI include advanced chat-bots that could
pass the Turing Test, fooling a person into believing the AI was a human being.
While advanced and impressive, these AI are not self-aware.
  Self-aware AI, as the name suggests, become sentient and aware of their own
existence. Still in the realm of science fiction, some experts believe that an AI
will never become conscious or "alive".

How Is AI Used Today?

AI is used extensively across a range of applications today, with varying levels of
sophistication. Recommendation algorithms that suggest what you might like next are
popular AI implementations, as are chatbots that appear on websites or in the form of
smart speakers (e.g., Alexa or Siri). AI is used to make predictions in terms of weather
and financial forecasting, to streamline production processes, and to cut down on
various forms of redundant cognitive labor (e.g., tax accounting or editing). AI is also
used to play games, operate autonomous vehicles, process language, and more.

OpenAI released its ChatGPT tool late in 2022. It rapidly gained in popularity with
millions of users being added each month in 2023. ChatGPT and GPT4 are still
considered to be highly-developed versions of Weak AI, but these are not strictly
reactive and can respond creatively to a wide variety of topics.

How Is AI Used in Healthcare?

In healthcare settings, AI is used to assist in diagnostics. AI is very good at identifying
small anomalies in scans and can better triangulate diagnoses from a patient's
symptoms and vitals. AI is also used to classify patients, maintain and track medical
records, and deal with health insurance claims. Future innovations are thought to
include AI-assisted robotic surgery, virtual nurses or doctors, and collaborative clinical
judgment.

The Bottom Line

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a rapidly evolving technology that tries to simulate human
intelligence using machines, enabling them to perform a wide range of tasks, from
simple to complex. AI encompasses various subfields, including machine learning (ML)
and deep learning, which allow systems to learn and adapt in novel ways from training
data. It has vast applications across multiple industries, such as healthcare, finance,
and transportation. The development ranges from weak AI, focused on specific tasks
like voice assistants, to the theoretical concept of strong AI or AGI (Artificial General
Intelligence), which would perform any intellectual task a human can. While AI offers
significant advancements, it also raises ethical, privacy, and employment concerns.
The future of AI holds immense potential but also requires careful consideration of its
societal and ethical impacts.