Artificial Intelligence: What Is AI?
Artificial Intelligence: What Is AI?
Artificial Intelligence: What Is AI?
What is AI?
From SIRI to self- driving cars, artificial intelligence (AI) is progressing rapidly. While science
fiction often portrays AI as robots with human-like characteristics, AI can encompass anything
from Google’s search algorithms to IBM’s Watson to autonomous weapons
Artificial Intelligence today is properly known as narrow AI (or weak AI), in that is designed to
perform a narrow task (e.g. only facial recognition or only internet searches or only driving car).
However, the long-term goal of many researchers is to create general AI (or strong AI). While
narrow AI may outperform humans at whatever its special task is, like playing chess or solving
equations.
In long term, an important question is what will happen if the quest for strong AI succeeds and
an AI system becomes better than humans at all cognitive tasks. As pointed out by I.J.Good in
1965, designing smarter AI systems itself a cognitive task. Such a system could potentially
undergo recursive self important. By inventing revolutionary new technologies, such a super
intelligence might help us eradicate war, disease, and poverty, and so the creation of strong AI
might be biggest event in human history. Some experts have expressed concern, though, that is
might also be the last, unless we learn to align the goals of AI with ours before it becomes super
intelligent.
1. Transportation:
The transportation industry looks like it will be the first to be completely disrupted by artificial
intelligence. In fact a lot of the impact of AI is already taking place. Uber and Lyft are both
working on self-driving technology. GPS navigation software company (which was acquired by
Google in 2013) qietly released a new app called CarPool that converts its 50-plus million users
into drivers and allow user to commute to work together for a fee.
It seems that Tesla has already beaten most other competitors to market with its autopilot
feature. Tesla now has over 300 million miles driven on autopilot, and all Tesla vehicles on the
road today are only a software update away from fully autonomous driving capability. Tesla is
also looking to disrupt the trucking industry with its new autonomous vehicle called Semi.
2. Criminal Injustice:
The next industry disrupted by artificial intelligence is the criminal justice system.
Advancements in facial recognition are making the fingerprint obsolete. Tech startups are using
AI to automate legal work. Meanwhile, some courts are already using AI to sense criminals and
determine parole eligibility.
But the criminal justice system is the one area where too much innovation could be a terrible
thing for society and lead us into a dystopian future if we are not careful. At this year’s SXSW,
Elon Musk said, “AI is far more dangerous than nukes. Far. So why do we have no regulatory
oversight?
Without proper government regulations of artificial intelligence and machine learning, we are at
risk of major disruption to our democracy:
Does the government’s use of AI require a warrant to search your online data?
Can AI be used to listen in on American citizen’s phone call without a warrant?
How can you subpoena an AI algorithm to testify so you can face your accuser in a court
of law?
How do we handle malpractice when AI recommends improper handling of a legal case?
These a just a few of the legal questions raised when introducing autonomous, decision
making technology into our criminal justice system
3. Advertising:
Finally, artificial intelligence is going to take targeted/personalized advertising to a whole other
level. I f you think the facebook scandal was bad, then you have no idea what’s in store in the
next decade. Advertisers are already able to predict what types of ads emotionally impact your
purchasing behavior. As time goes on, ads are going to continue to become more tailored to the
individual. Imagine Amazon’s Alexa slipping sponsored messages into a natural conversation or
personalized augmented reality billboard ads that know you by name.
Even today, the impact AI is having on your society cannot be ignored. However, if you want to
have a competitive edge and you are willing to prepare for these changes now, there is still
plenty of time to be ahead of the curve.
As these examples illustrate, the concern about advanced AI isn’t malevolence but competence.
A super intelligent AI will be extremely good at accomplishing its goals, and if those goals aren’t
aligned with ours, we have a problem. A key goal of AI safety research is to never place
humanity in the position of those ants.