Of late, much has been said and written about artificial intelligence. The technology meant for making the task easier for a human being, is the science of engineering for making the machines intelligent so that it could work the same way and even better than the human being.
The 4th industrial revolution is being built with AI, along with other technologies, and AI here is augmenting the capabilities of a human being and leading the technological world in a new direction.
Some of the main types of artificial intelligence are:
- Limited memory: These are the AI systems which can use past experiences for making informed future decisions. The self-driving cars are known to be using the AI limited memory type. The limited memory AI category, includes the machine learning models, which derives the information from the previously learned events or the stored data. It builds the experiential learning process from the data fed to it or by observing the previous actions. The example of autonomous vehicles is a perfect one here, as it uses the limited memory principle for depending on the combination of pre-programmed and observational knowledge. Self-driving cars even read the environment around it for detecting the patterns and changing to external factors as per the requirement.
- Reactive machines: This type of AI does not have past memory or information to use for future actions. It reacts as per the scenario. Example: IBM deep blue machine, the machine which beat Grandmaster Garry Kasparov.
The recent application of AI, built by the researchers, is using algae for fighting climate change. Hypergiant, an AI company, has developed an advanced bioreactor that uses algae for capturing carbon dioxide, which is later on converted into animal feed or an ingredient in the consumer products.
The AI-powered machine with the EOS bioreactor utilizes AI’s ability for capturing carbon dioxide through photosynthesis. The machine harnesses the photosynthesis process for filtering emissions and capturing carbon. The glass tube has both algae and water, and then grown with the help of sunlight. Here, AI monitors and regulates the growth of algae.
Benefits of AI:
- Enhanced automation: AI can perform tasks easily without any human intervention. It has automated several tasks and applications in different industries. Deep learning, machine learning, and AI technologies are gradually being adopted for reducing the workload of a common man. This has increasingly reduced the manpower cost and operational costs involved in it.
- Eliminating the need to execute repeated tasks: AI is a boon to humanity as it liberates them for performing repeated tasks, which instead they can invest on other productive tasks. For instance, financial analysts are taking the complete advantage of this technology and making the banking process easier and seamless for the consumers by transferring the repeated tasks to AI.
- Disaster response system: Recently, around the world, there has been an increase in the number of disasters. One can take the example of wildfires; in 2019, there were around 46,706 wildfires, and about 4.6 million acres were burned down the same year in US.
AI can smartly demonstrate its capability in analyzing the disaster prone area, and provide the data to take the right precautions, prevent and mitigate the effects.
- Almost a zero scope for the errors: One of the best things about AI is that it minimizes the scope for any error. Human beings, when in stress, are prone to commit errors, which is not the case with AI. The cost of these errors increases if the person is from a higher position and has good influence across the organization. AI can eliminate this scope significantly. One of the crucial differences which separate the human errors from the AI error is the predictability element. The errors caused by the AI are highly predictable that the ones by the humans, so it is easy to prevent it.
- 24/7 availability: AI is available 24/7, unlike a human being. As it does not function like a common person and take frequent breaks, customers in leading organizations can seamlessly chat with the AI-powered chatbots. It is programmed to work for long hours without getting tired or distracted.
- Have medical applications: They are highly used in the field of medicine. AI helps the doctors, physicians across the world assess the data related to the health of the patient, and understand the risk factor. Artificial surgery simulator is one of the important innovations related to AI.
- The right digital assistance: AI and robots are not programmed to handle emotions. It is programmed mainly to follow a logical process and make the right program decisions based on experiential learning. So, it is the right digital assistance for anybody.
What are the risks involved with AI?
Some of the risks that are involved with AI are that if it is not appropriately programmed due to technical challenges, then it might lead to disastrous results. For instance, one of the financial firms ran into trouble as the compliance software failed in spotting the trading issues because the data feeds did not include all the trades of the customer.
As AI depends on the data for the learning purpose, any inaccuracy in the data will be immediately seen in the outcome. It can lead to the interaction issues giving rise to accidents and injuries, as the machine does not recognize when to slow down and when to speed up.
Some of the AI companies with $100 million funding:
- Open AI
- Tempus
- Zoox
- Nauto
- CloudMinds
- DataRobot