AI stands for artificial intelligence. When people think of AI, they think of things like artificially made pictures, AI chatbots, and more. AI has been around since the 1950s; it was described differently. “AI is a concept that has been around formally since the 1950s when it was defined as a machine’s ability to perform a task that would’ve previously required human intelligence.” Many advancements have been made in AI since the 1950s. How have these advancements affected the world?
In 1954, the Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence was held. This event is considered to be the birth of AI in scientific research. There were talks of AI before 1954 but this event was the starting point for AI. Even though this event was the birthing place for AI in scientific research, the event went poorly, but people agreed that AI had potential. There were many troubles during the time of researching AI. “The biggest was the lack of computational power to do anything substantial: computers simply couldn’t store enough information or process it fast enough.” Due to this problem, funding started to dwindle and research on AI became slow for 10 years. AI was then brought back in the 1980s due to an “expansion of the algorithmic toolkit, and a boost of funds.”
Soon after this, John Hopfield and David Rumelhart made “deep learning” techniques popular. These “deep learning” techniques allowed computers to learn using experience. Edward Feigenbaum introduced expert systems. “On the other hand Edward Feigenbaum introduced expert systems which mimicked the decision-making process of a human expert.” Expert systems are widely used in industries. The Japanese government-funded expert systems and other AI-related endeavors very heavily as part of their Fifth Generation Computer Project (FGCP). With the goals of revolutionizing computer processing, implementing logic programming, and improving artificial intelligence, they invested $400 million from 1982-1990. Although most of those goals were not met, later on in the 1990s and 2000s, many of the landmark goals of AI were achieved. AI has since continued to grow and evolve.
There are three different types of AI. The first type of AI is artificial narrow AI (ANI). ANI is an important part of voice assistants. Some familiar voice assistants are Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant. “This category includes intelligent systems designed or trained to carry out specific tasks or solve particular problems without being explicitly designed.” ANI doesn’t possess general intelligence.
The second type of AI is general AI (AGI). “Artificial general intelligence (AGI), or strong AI, is still a hypothetical concept as it involves a machine understanding and performing vastly different tasks based on accumulated experience.” Artificial general intelligence (AGI) is more equal to human intellect. This is because AGI systems would be able to reason like humans and think like humans. AGI would be an AI that has common sense and is capable of having a consciousness. Artificial intelligence that has a consciousness is a fair distance away in the future but it might just be the ultimate goal of AI research.
The third and last type of AI is super AI (ASI). “ASI is a system where the intelligence of a machine surpasses all forms of human intelligence in all aspects and outperforms humans in every function.” ASI is a hypothetical concept that would shake humankind to its core. It would also have the ability to destroy humankind. Though this concept of an artificial intelligence system being able to learn and improve itself over time is a faraway thing, many good advancements could result from it.
Currently, AI is a big part of many people’s everyday lives. Things like face ID, google search, social media, online banking, and more are things that people use every day. Most people probably don’t realize how much AI is in their everyday lives. “From morning to night, going about our everyday routines, AI technology drives much of what we do. When we wake, many of us reach for our mobile phone or laptop to start our day. Doing so has become automatic, and integral to how we function in terms of our decision-making, planning and information-seeking.”
The future holds a lot in store for AI. AI could improve healthcare, manufacturing, and customer service. This could lead to higher-quality experiences for workers and customers. Many challenges come with AI and many concerns but AI will continue to grow and evolve.
