Artificial Intelligence

First researched by John McCarthy in 1956, Artificial Intelligence is a sub-field and a hot topic in informatics. The goal of Artificial Intelligence is to develop technology that has the ability to complete tasks that are usually completed by humans.

If Artificial Intelligence were put on a spectrum, there would be weak AI, strong AI and everything in between. Weak AI, also known as narrow AI, is technology that can act like humans, but cannot reflect how humans think. In other words, a system that focuses on a specific task and tends to surpass the human’s ability in completing that task. A great example would be IBM’s Deep Blue, a computer who beat the world’s chess champion in 1997. Although it was a master at chess, if Deep Blue was told to play a different game, it would not know anything.

Strong AI or general AI is technology that aims to become fully ‘human’. In other words, it is an AI system that is designed to cover a more general scope of abilities. This means that it would do what a human can do, but also go through the same reasoning and thought processes to make this decision. Strong AI has not yet been fully discovered, as there are still differences in the answers given by an AI or a human during a Turing Test.

Everything in between on the spectrum is technology that is informed by human reasoning. This means that the technology collects information and builds up evidence, and using human reasoning as a guide, it is able to come to a conclusion. From IBM Watson to Google’s work in Deep Learning, as well as Siri in Apple Products and Facebook’s friend recommendations, these technologies are all able to recognize patterns (to a degree), add up the evidence and come to a desired conclusion.

Said to impact society at an exponential rate, Artificial Intelligence is researchers around the world are studying. However, the more scientists study, the more questions arise. What we know for sure is that step by step, Artificial Intelligence is being incorporated into our daily lives for our benefit and to make life more comfortable.