In recent months, Artificial intelligence is probably a term you have heard being thrown around quite often. For some people, this may have been the first time that they’ve heard the term, others may hear it all the time. But even if you’ve heard it before, do you know what it actually is?
This is what Wikipedia has to say: “Artificial intelligence is intelligence—perceiving, synthesising, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by humans or by other animals.” This statement is great if you’re looking for a dictionary definition on the matter, but not if you want to truly understand what it is.
Despite the sudden popularity of the term, AI as a concept has been around for many years. However, only recently have we developed the technology and knowledge to get closer to making this a reality. The word “closer” has been used purposefully as what we are seeing popularised today is not true AI. By definition, what we are seeing today is known as weak or narrow AI. In addition to weak AI, there are 2 more categories: general AI and super AI
Weak AI refers to AI systems that have been designed to solve specific problems and carry out specific actions without directly being told what to do. Examples of weak AI are systems such as Siri and Google Assistants. You can ask them very general questions and they will formulate a response based on that without being told exactly how to do it. It figures out how to do it by itself. However, if you were to ask your Google Home system to drive your car or make your bed, it wouldn’t be able to complete the task or learn how to do it.
General AI is the AI that is closest to what you’re most likely thinking of. This AI can perform a large plethora of different tasks, creating solutions based on experiences that they have been through, not dissimilar to how a human would interact with the world. It essentially describes a machine system that has common sense and can learn from all of the experiences that has had. General AI is what would be used for the perfect robot assistant that your dreaming of, that you would be able to ask to do your laundry, wash the dishes or tackle the dreaded ironing pile.
The final category of Artificial intelligence is super. This is the AI that mostly appears in movies. It is AI that has surpassed human intelligence in every single aspect and can indefinitely learn and improve itself. It is the type of AI that goes calamitously wrong in movies and tries to murder all humans and destroy the world, but that’s just how it’s displayed in popular culture and the media. While this is a possibility, when harnessed correctly and effectively, this type of AI can be used to propel society into a completely new age and advance science, medicine and technology in ways that aren’t humanly possible. It could revolutionise the world and change our future for the better. Science fiction could very easily become a reality.
Now that you know a bit more about what AI is and how it can be used in society, we hope you will be a little less confused in our currently AI-dominated newsfeeds and have a better outlook towards a future involving AI.
