When we think about Artificial Intelligence we see robots and science-fiction where computers take over the world and humanity ends up in subjugation. The reality today is that we have artificial intelligence assisting us in many parts of all of our lives with more areas coming online on a regular basis. Here are five ways artificial intelligence is touching your life today and will change the way you live your life tomorrow.
Artificial intelligence is coming to everything we touch.
Eric Schmidt the CEO of Google recently said in Davos, Switzerland that the internet will cease to exist. What he meant was that the Internet will be linked to everything that we see and touch on a daily basis. For this to be effective what we will start seeing is that not only are these items connected to the Internet but they will also have integrated intelligence algorithms that enable them to anticipate our needs and proactively give us support. The transition we will see is the shift from the “Internet of things” to “Intelligent things”.
Artificial intelligence in the cloud is helping us make daily decisions.
With increasing use of cloud-based storage but also cloud-based computing we are getting to a position where algorithms that are too complicated for a Home PC to be able to process are now able to sit online. Recent shifts to the use of graphical processing units or GPUs as opposed to central processing units or CPUs means that the cloud is able to do more effective competing and logic processing online than we are able to do off-line. GPUs come from the gaming world and are used to boost the power of gaming PCs. Putting these into online servers is increasing the power of cloud-based computing exponentially. You are already having your online activity more effectively supported by this gaming technology as companies like Google and Facebook change their server infrastructure.
Artificial intelligence is unlocking our access to the dark web.
Traditional search engines like Google and Bing only index about 5% of the Internet. The vast majority of activity on the Internet is in a space called the Dark Web. Illegal activity around drugs, prostitution, and other illicit transactions are hidden from most search capabilities. DARPA is creating a search engine called Memex that will enable Law Enforcement to track activity on the Dark Web. The implications for most of us come from the algorithms that will make the Internet more intelligent, enabling us to have more accurate and relevant search responses. It will also assist advertisers with more appropriately targeted product placement – effectively where adverts aren’t spam but things that we actually wants to see. There are many other areas as yet undiscovered where intelligent algorithms like this will unlock and increase our daily use of the Internet.
Artificial intelligence makes your face a more effective fingerprint.
Microsoft research division China recently put out update paper where they say that they have managed to develop a deep learning system,which is another name for artificial intelligence, that has outperformed human testers in the identification of 1000 images on the Internet. The human error rate was 5.1% and the computer error rate was 4.94%. What this means is that artificial intelligence is able to process complex images more effectively than human users. Facial recognition will now become part of our computer security. In our world we have millions of security cameras recording our every move, and mobile phones mapping our activity – all uploaded to the cloud. This artificial intelligence sitting in the cloud means that every time you step outside your face will identify you and act as an automated fingerprint. In the near future just the fact that you are present will be enough to secure any transaction.
Artificial intelligence is changing the workplace.
A recent survey of 2000 CTO and IT executives conducted by Accenture identified one of their concerns that there is not enough training being provided to their workforces. The interesting thing in this response was that these executives included training required by machines in this statistic (77% shared the concern that this would be needed within 3 years). Executives are beginning to talk about a new blended workforce where the nature of blending is between humans and computers rather then diverse humanity.
Bill Gates, Elon Musk, and Stephen Hawking have all recently put out statements warning against the rise of artificial intelligence. Elon Musk says that artificial intelligence is as dangerous as Nuclear technology. Stephen Hawking raises concerns from an evolution perspective when he says that computers will develop at faster rates then humanity and artificial intelligence will make us redundant. While these concerns make sense, the reality is that we live in a world where artificial intelligence is slowly seeping in to every part of our lives. We will not be aware of any change in our state with relation to artificial intelligence because it will increasingly just become “one of those things” in our lives that we use and don’t even see.