Some perceive Artificial Intelligence with a fear that, as more this discipline improves, the more human activities could easily be replaced. For this reason, some do not want AI to progress to a point where it achieves Human Level of intelligence. But in reality AI is a means to empower people by collaborating with intelligent software. The day to day applications of AI are more common than you might imagine, some of which we shall discuss in this post.
Where ever we look nowadays, AI is being discussed and new AI companies are popping up with more and more related products and services. From voice-driven personal assistants like Siri and Alexa, to more intrinsic and fundamental technologies such as behavioral algorithms, suggestive searches and autonomous vehicles boasting powerful predictive capabilities, there are several examples and applications of AI in use today. However the technology still has a long way to go with General Intelligence predicted to make its appearance by around 2035.
According to David Cearley, Vice President, distinguished analyst and Gartner Fellow, “The future will be characterized by smart devices delivering increasingly insightful digital services everywhere.”
Companies like Microsoft and Uber use Knightscope K5 robots, capable of reading license plates and reporting suspicious activities, to patrol parking lots and large outdoor area, aiding in crime prevention.
Healthcare is another field where application of AI is bringing about revolutionary changes. Cancer detection and prediction by AI algorithms have an accuracy better than that by humans. AI also helps hyper-personalize cancer treatment by predicting the response of individual patients to therapeutic drugs and the required radiation dosages. Beyond these, advanced Machine Learning algorithms help organize Electronic Medical Records and even obtain disease conditions from that.
One of the innate capabilities that humans possess which has made them stand out from machines till now is the ability to sustain a conversation in ‘natural languages.’ The machines have constantly been improving their ability to communicate with humans through natural languages thanks to advances in Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques. With models like BERT, GPT, XLNet coming to the fore, the NLP scenario is seeing a huge leap with the Question-Answering capacity of machines improving to a level where it is hard to distinguish a chat bot from a real human.
Autonomous cars, one of the modern day miracles, is powered by remarkable AI algorithms. The fact that these algorithms perform much better than human drivers in almost all situations is a bit hard for some to digest as of now, but nevertheless an undeniable fact. Automation has been in many industries for long, but now we are seeing a new face of the same intelligent machines taking over human roles. The level of automation is only going to go up from here on and the tasks taken care by machines will get more and more complex.
Whenever we use Google Maps for navigation or call an Uber or book a flight ticket, we are using AI. When we start typing in Google and it makes recommendations to choose from, that’s AI in action. AI is behind many of Google’s products and is a big priority for the company as well.
The Banking and Finance industry heavily relies on AI for things like customer service, fraud protection, chat bots and the likes. Spam filters in our email inbox and Smart email categorization (such as Primary, Social, Promotions, Updates, Forums) that we experience with Gmail are AI powered. There are “Smart replies” in Gmail which aids the user to respond to a mail with simple phrases like “Thanks” or “Let’s do it” with just one click.
E-commerce websites like Amazon, Flipkart, Myntra use AI based Neural Networks to quickly return a wide list of the most relevant products as well as personalized recommendations on their websites and through emails to increase their revenue tremendously.
All the walks of our lives are tremendously being impacted by AI on a daily basis and it’s high time we recognized the way in which AI is improving our quality of living, which in the years to come will substantially increase with AI reducing the human-in-the-loop element with better performing smart AI algorithms.
