Artificial intelligence

Introduction

The term artificial intelligence was first heard in 1956, in Dartmouth conference and artificial intelligence has since expanded because of the principles and the theories developed by researchers. Artificial intelligence (AI) is the combination of philosophy, computer science, and physiology. AI is considered as the science and engineering of making intelligent machines. It includes the capacity of learning, using commonsense reasoning, the discerning relationship between facts, and maintaining a large storehouse of knowledge. The AI tend to provide the ability to emulate human through behavior or processes by using different ingredients such as action, reasoning, perception, and knowledge. Artificial intelligence is not just about thinking, but also about reasoning.

Background of AI

The history of AI may be traced back in 1956 when John McCarthy proposed the term during a conference held at Dartmouth College. The initial objective was too ambitious and the first few AI systems were not successful in delivering what they had promised (Warwick, 2013). After a few years, the researchers started setting realistic goals for themselves and in the 1960s and 1970s; the main focus of AI research was in the development of a knowledge-based system or expert systems (Warwick, 2013). In the time, the expert systems technology was being applied to solving various problems, and during the same time, work on neural networks was observed that showed how the distributed structure of elements would represent an individual advantage. In 1990, there was a dramatic change in the content, and the methodology of AI research and the focus shifted to grounding AI methods on mathematical foundation and tackling the real-world problems.

Artificial intelligence

AI is considered as the use of the computer in capturing human brain in a limited domain. AI is as a result of the computer revolution where the systems developed tend to be behaving intellectually, they reason rationally, and also have the ability to interpret the environment in real time (Goertzel & Pennachin 2006). Today, the future of AI is not yet clear. There are many experts and researchers who are investigating the possibilities of AI robots in the environment. Some organizations such as Microsoft have been using AI as part of their help system. IBM is an organization that is researching AI in speech recognition, and this research may result to enabling humans to speech to a program that will then type what is spoken (Warwick, 2013). A good example is the Chess playing program that has a specially designed engine that plays as a human opponent and capable of counting a million moves which are not possible to human beings.  In the coming decades, AI will greatly impact how we live, play, work, educate, seek a mate, wage war, and also care for the elderly. Currently, AI has greatly revolutionized the business world, gaming, medicine, war, academia, and weather forecasting among others. It is clear that the incorporation of AI in the computer revolution has greatly impacted the lives of people.

AI does depend on a broad intercourse with the computing fields and with fields outside the computer science such as linguistics, psychology, mechanical engineering, philosophy, logic, control theory, economics, statistics, and much more. The broad range has been as a result of the grandness of the challenges that are facing AI that include creating the mechanical intelligence and understanding the basis of information of the human counterpart (Warwick, 2013). The fact that AI has borrowed from other fields has helped to improve these areas. Through the interdisciplinary relationship, the AI appears to be functioning as a pathway of ideas between computing and other disciplines and these ideas have greatly changed the different fields.

Usually, the AI systems are not designed so as to replace human beings; however, they tend to help in such a way that the two when working together achieve more than when either would be working individually. There are several categories of AI including an expert system, genetic algorithms, and neural networks.

Neural networks

The neural network is a computer model that tends to copy the biological neural model of the human brain. It is considered as an adaptive model structured to function in the same way as the human brain would function. Most of the unstructured problems are solved through the use of neural networks incorporated in the intelligent agents (Dagli, 2012). Thus, it enabled the highly efficient retrieval and search of pertinent information that is needed in decision-making.  The neural networks normally rely on the past data for attaining solutions; thus, may not be used for the problems that have no historical data.

Genetic algorithms

It is a search procedure based on the mechanics of natural selections and the genetics, which aims at continually producing better solutions to problems (Dagli, 2012). Genetic algorithms tend to work through randomly generating the solutions to certain problems and doing iterations, by use of bit patterns as the representations of the solutions. The procedure usually works with the population of solutions, and during the iterations, it tends to continually update the population that is working with, remove the less good solutions, and then replace them with the improved solutions (Dagli, 2012). It is an ideal system for finding the optimal solution in a whole raft of them in a problem that has a lot of variables. The genetic algorithms tend to work well compared to the traditional counterparts of integer, but it is time intensive. Therefore, when requiring highly accurate solutions, the genetic algorithm is not the appropriate as it is only good in predicting and the probabilistic optimization.

Expert system

The expert system is the computer program that does simulate the judgment and the behavior of a human being that does have the expert knowledge and the experience in a certain field. The programs tend to imitate the reasoning process an expert would follow when they are solving a difficult problem in a field. It is possible to solve the structured problems using the expert systems. They are good for the well-defined domains. The expert systems contain principal parts which are the inference engine, knowledge base, and the user interface (Dagli, 2012). The knowledge base has the domain-specific and the high-quality knowledge. The success of any of the expert systems normally depends on the collection of high accurate and precise knowledge. With regards to the inference engine, the use of efficient procedures and the rules by the inference engine is necessary for getting a correct solution. The user interface normally offers interaction between the expert system user and the expert system itself. The expert system user does not necessarily need to be an expert in artificial intelligence.

The expert system is developed for a variety of reasons including aggregating all available knowledge in a certain domain from several experts, preserving the knowledge of the retiring personnel, and archiving rare skills (Warwick, 2013). It is possible for the expert systems to train new employees or even eliminate amounts of monotonous works that people do; thus, helping to save the expert time on the situations that requires his expertise.

The deep impact of AI

As the consumers, we are expecting that the AI technology is going to penetrate in all aspects of life in a few years. The auto manufacturers have been providing the cruise control in the past years and reducing the cognitive effort for the human being (Goertzel & Pennachin 2006). Today, we have new car models that have automated lane-keeping and also parallel parking. With the advancement of technology, it is more likely that the concept of having a human driver be foreign as there will be a human loom operator. The technology has continued altering how the economies and the societies function at the fundamental levels. There is exponential progress in fields related to AI development including software and computing and with this development; we should expect that the pattern will be strong (Dagli, 2012). With the advances in technology, there have been various issues being raised about regulatory and policy questions and ethics relating to the cost and benefits of unlocking through the technology.

The press has even been highlighting the risks that are associated with AI claiming that they are becoming super intelligent and leaving human beings in AI’s intellectual dust in every domain. When this happen, the ability of a human to contribute in almost all sectors will become insignificant. When that happen, in case the AI has goals that are different from that of human beings, it can view humanity as being a problem that needs to be solved; thus, resulting to a doomsday kind of situation.

Advantages of AI

The main idea of creating AI is to help make the lives of humans easier. AI has been very beneficial in reducing error. The AI helps in reducing the error and increases the chances of accuracy with the greater degree of precision. AI tends to increase the production capacity and make goods more accessible and cheaper. By expanding the scope of the autonomous machinery, it significantly expands the demand for skilled technicians who should service and maintain the system. Therefore, while it is claimed that AI leads to job loss, it also creates some job opportunities, increases the wages and also improves the quality of life of these technical professionals (Geist, 2015). AI is of great benefit to the repetitive jobs. There are those repetitive jobs that are usually monotonous and may be performed by the assistance of machine intelligence. The machines normally think faster than humans and these AI machines may be used in completing some of the dangerous jobs.  AI also comes with advantages such as flexibility, speed, durability, reduction of costs, and duplication. In regards to cost reduction, AI systems can be able to perform a task that several workers need to do; hence, helping to cut down the wage costs. AI can provide an immediate response thus depicting real time experience.

AI present more benefits to the organization managers. Rather than replacing managers, it is making managers more efficient as it is possible to outsource many administrative tasks to AI. Therefore, instead of the manager spending a lot of time in filing the weekly and quarterly reports, such jobs is outsources to the AI-powered computers.  AI is also beneficial in the aspect of improving decision making. The AI machines have a deep learning capability, and they become smarter as they continue learning from experience (Geist, 2015). The deep learning innovations such as IBM Watson promise a way that the AI may become part of every major process of decision-making. Many AI tools that are used in the organization offer the management with a better way for making good judgment decisions.

Impact of AI on business

The AI is changing how people are doing business. There are several AI business applications that are used in different industries from finance and law to healthcare and marketing. There are many start-ups that are using AI to help save time and also increase the efficiency of the organization. Today, the technology can offer virtual assistance, analyze unstructured data, and also generate insights that allow the business people to focus on growing their businesses.

Businesses have been using artificial intelligence to help improve the customer services. For instance, Facebook has launched chatbot platform which is a lightweight AI program that tends to communicate with the users in a way that the human being would provide assistance (Goertzel & Pennachin 2006). A company that has used Chatbot is the Royal Dutch Airlines that built the Facebook bot so as to help its travelers with the check-in docs and the send notifications on the status of the flight.

Businesses are using AI because it is helping to make the businesses more competitive. One of the common uses of AI is the predictive analytics that may create personalized services to clients based on their past buying behavior. As the AI helps to break down the huge amount of data, it is possible for organizations to predict what the client want and their needs in the future. With the use of AI, it helps anticipate the behavior of the customers, and by doing this, companies can be able to develop their products and services that will help stay competitive. In doing this, it helps give the business an edge over other companies that are trying to understand the market change. The use of AI to make accurate prediction helps businesses to improve their market performance and become more efficient.

The AI in business is not just limited to analytics, but businesses are using the AI apps to help in a wide range of tasks. Businesses are benefiting from AI through controlling the flow of goods, money, analyzing customer behavior, scheduling daily activities, and adjusting the market campaigns. With AI application, it is possible for the business owners to reduce the margin of error and also eliminate repetitive manual tasks (Jones, 2015). AI has contributed to the evolution of advertising and marketing. The new technologies are changing how the marketers have been working in the past years. The Airbnb has managed to develop a smart app for optimizing accommodation prices and taking into account the seasonal demands, lodging locations, and popular events nearby. With AI, it is possible for the marketers to automate some routine tasks, devote more time to the core responsibilities, and acquire the important data; thus, help to increase the customer satisfaction and the revenues (Goertzel & Pennachin 2006).

The complexity of the industrial manufacturing and the need for greater flexibility, lower cost, product quality, and higher efficient has changed the face of the manufacturing practice. Manufacturing has now shifted from the mass production to a controlled production where there is the only production of products if there is a market for them and in case there is a market, they must be produced quickly. With the emergence of AI, it has provided various techniques with application in manufacturing (Jones, 2015). The genetic algorithms, expert systems, and neural networks have attracted a lot of attention, and they have been successfully employed in the manufacturing sector.  The increase in the application of AI in manufacturing is because of the availability of very powerful computers.

According to Diao et al. (2009), the general idea behind AI is the ability of the machines to think for us. The AI technology is present in many industries including fast foods and automotive. The machines can be able to communicate with humans, make decisions, and also follow the process. In the manufacturing industry, robots are very common, where organizations are using robots to conduct certain tasks as a way of offsetting the pressure of the increasing labor cost. A major problem with the manufacturing robots is that they have been developed for a particular purpose. Therefore, if you want a different function, one will have to design and produce a new robot rather than programming the existing one. The idea of robots replacing humans in manufacturing is something that we may not be able to avoid (Goertzel & Pennachin 2006). As the technology continues to advance, the high accuracy, low cost, and efficiency of robots will benefit the human society.  As the manufacturing companies aim to provide the best services and products to its clients, there is still more pressure for experts and researcher to develop more efficient AI.

How AI is driving growth

In many industries, we have been able to experience the increasing adoption of automation solutions to enhance operations, streamline processes, improve services and product quality, and enable continuous application delivery. The evolution of artificial intelligence and robotics is developing viable opportunities for the growth of businesses. The AI assists organizations to make sense of the big data they have through executing complex analysis and computation at a speed that is not possible with human beings (Goertzel & Pennachin 2006). AI is considered as a new factor of production and is driving growth in three important ways. First, AI is creating a virtual workforce known as intelligent automation, second is complementing and enhancing the skills and the ability of the existing workforce, and third, it is driving innovation in the economy (Jones, 2015). AI does have the astounding capability of accelerating scientific discovery in medicine, biology, transportation, healthcare, and education.

Intelligent automation

As the AI is gaining momentum in industries and organizations, we appear to be entering a period of intelligent automation. It is more than just the simple transfer of tasks from human to machine. The power of intelligent automation is to change the traditional ways of operating and transforming what humans can achieve by data, weaving systems, and people together (Jones, 2015).  The AI-powered wave of intelligent automation tends to be creating growth through the ability to automate the complex physical tasks that tend to require agility and adaptability. The work of retrieving materials in the warehouse has always exhausting, and companies have always relied on the ability of people to move in crowded spaces and avoid obstacles (Jones, 2015). However, with robots, this process has been made easier through the use of lasers and the 3D depth sensors in navigating safely and also work alongside the warehouse workers.  The intelligent automation which is the combination of AI and automation is assisting companies in transcending conventional performance tradeoffs to get extraordinary levels of quality and efficiency.

The AI and automation are not new; however, these technologies have substantially progressed. The advance in the machine learning technique, great computing power, and improvement in the sensors have been a great contribution to the new generation of software and hardware robots that can apply in every industry sector. The development of intelligent automation appears to be leading to a new era of innovation and productivity (Goertzel & Pennachin 2006). With intelligent automation, it appears to be setting new standards for quality, speed, functionality, and efficiency and those organizations that can employ this automation can surpass their competitors who do not consider it.

Labor and capital augmentation

AI Is also contributing to a significant economic growth through enabling labor to be used more efficiently.  With AI, it enables people to focus on the parts of their role, which add the most value. The AI is also enhancing labor through complementing the capabilities of people through providing people with new tools for enhancing their natural intelligence. While AI is considered to enhance the skill of the workforce, it also helps to improve capital efficiency, which is a vital aspect in industries. For example, Funic, an industrial robotics company partnered with Cisco so as to create a way to reduce the factory downtime (Goertzel & Pennachin 2006). Fanuc does have a system that is powered by advanced machine learning and with the system; it captures and then analyzes the data from the different parts of the manufacturing process so as to improve the production. Therefore, with the advances in technology, it is clear that AI presents a lot of advantage to companies.

AI and innovation

AI tends to be shaping the world, and we are very close to the depiction of robots in the future. There are different ways that the AI is promoting innovation. One way is that AI is encouraging new ways of thinking. One advantage of AI is its ability to go through data faster than humans. When humans work together with AI, it will be possible to consider a vast number of new information in new ways. Therefore, AI provides a way of accessing new information and by doing this; it may assist humans to consider new connections and applications from the information (Diao et al. 2009). The flexibility presented by AI shows the possibility of what may be done with the data, what people can learn, and also what may be created. While AI is considered to be driving innovation, it is also claimed that AI helps to alleviate time constraints. The ability to leverage AI for the simple tasks in the organizations tends to free employees so that they can work on more complex issues. With AI, it provides a high ability to analyze data and prioritize the data. Thus, it helps the human decision maker to pick the relevant information and analyze the most important information first (Goertzel & Pennachin 2006). AI has also been providing the opportunity for elevating collective knowledge of the organization and improving the operational excellence. It is possible to capture the employee’s knowledge and make it available to others and also bring the knowledge to the broader audience.

Industries affected by Artificial Intelligence

AI has proven to be a game-changer in some fields where it causes transformations that were unimaginable in the past. There are several industries affected by AI including healthcare, transportation, retail, insurance, finance, entertainment, and education.

AI in healthcare

AI plays a significant role in healthcare with the digital shift in healthcare paving the way for advances in artificial intelligence, automation, and surgical robots. Most people claim that the AI is replacing the health care workers; however, it appears as if the health care value chain is moving from the labor-driven and the technology-enabled aspect to the human-enabled and digital driven model. The technologies present in the health care are helping to reinforce the role of humans in healthcare and also create a redefinition of the role of health providers (Diao et al. 2009).  AI present a large opportunity in healthcare which does not only involve making the health providers and doctors more efficient in doing their work but also aims to make the lives of patients better and also save lives.

There are several pharmaceutical and medical companies that are exploiting the power of AI with great results. For instance, the Johnson and Johnson’s sedasys stem has FDA approval of automatically delivering anesthesia for procedures like colonoscopies (Numan, 2016).  In this case, the doctor can oversee various machines at once, and this helps to reduce the cost when compared to a dedicated anesthesiologist.  In the health care industry, there tend to be many opportunities for AI. It is possible to use the AI gadgets at home in tracking the vital signs of the patient and generate reports that may be sent to the physician for a diagnosis. With the help of AI, it is possible for the healthcare industry to provide an accurate diagnosis, convenient customer experience, and precise medical intervention. An area in AI that is starting to get adoption in the field of customer service is with healthcare bots (Diao et al. 2009). The bot is an AI application that patients may interact with through a chat window to get help with their requests. In the healthcare industry, the bots may be used in areas like scheduling follow-up appointment with the health provider online. With such AI, it tends to improve the customer services and also provide 24/7 assistance to the clients through billing, scheduling, and clinical requests. In this aspect, the health organization benefit through reducing the administrative costs.

AI in transportation

 Artificial intelligence has encouraged us to do things that we never knew we were capable of doing. AI is helping create a new industrial revolution in the transportation industry, and the society appears to be adapting to the AI led society with super smart cars. In the transportation industry, we currently have cars with AI based driver assist features such as advanced cruise control and self-parking. The self-driving cars many be applied in delivery drivers, public transportation, alleviating traffic congestion, and decreasing the risk of accidents.  AI is being used to control traffic; thus, reducing energy use, wait times, and the emission. According to Numan (2016), he claims that in the future, the AI will help to develop fully autonomous cars. In the transportation, AI is expected to offer reliable, safe, and efficient transportation while it reduces the impact on communities and the environment. The transportation industry is looking to firm up the transport infrastructure with the help of AI. With the developments in AI, the autonomous transport in the form of the unmanned truck is possible. The wireless technology will help to interconnect the road trains with manually controlled trucks; thus, helping to improve transportation. 

AI in banking

AI is not new in the banking sector. Some of the benefits of AI in banks tend to be wide that range from customer experience, back office operations, risk management, product delivery, compliance, and marketing. With the help of AI, banks can make decisions using the large histories of data. AI in the banking sector is providing advanced data analytics (Goertzel & Pennachin 2006). The innovations in the data analytics are empowering the financial institutions with smart systems. With this help, the banks can increase their customer retention through having digital assistants to manage the routine inquiries and offer personalized advice. The personalization tends to be a major benefit for banks, and most organizations tend to be experimenting with ways to match the services and products to the clients. With this ability, the technology tends to simplify money management process for customers and also provide recommendations and suggestion for upgrades and the new services through matching the algorithms (Diao et al. 2009). There are different ways that banks can use AI in their operations. For instance, in the front end operations, the presence of robotic wealth advisors may engage with clients, assess client’s investment portfolios, identify their risk appetite, and then suggest the investment plan which is based on careful analysis. With the aid of AI, banks can offer personalized services and improve the customer experience.

AI in Education

When looking at most activities in the world, it appears as if AI is running the world where Facebook tend to be suggesting friends, Siri managing calendars, cars parking themselves, and even computers trading our stocks (Goertzel & Pennachin 2006). It is as every field is benefiting from the advances in AI and education is one field that has not been left behind.  The AI applications have helped to address some challenges of learning including planning, reasoning, language processing, and cognitive modeling. A computer software known as Intelligent Tutor System is an example of AI that tracks the mental steps of the learning when solving problems and diagnoses the misconceptions and also estimates the learner understanding of the domain (Numan, 2016). The software also offers timely guidance, explanation, and feedback to the learner and promote productive learning behavior.

AI has been able to find its way into the classroom. In the past schools would use one single approach in teaching and because students tend to learn at a different pace, teachers would find it very hard to identify the educational needs of students. However, the AI has managed to solve this problem as the machine learning algorithms have programs that help the teachers to identify any gaps in teaching and determine where students are having difficulty in the subject (Numan, 2016). Courser is an open online course provider, which is helping to solve the problems where gaps may exist in learning. With this application, when many students are found to have submitted the wrong answer in their assignment, the system tends to alert the instructor and provide the future students with a customized message providing hints to the correct answer. Such system helps in filling the gap in the explanation in courses and ensures that all students build the same conceptual foundation (Geist, 2015). Instead of students having to wait for feedback from their instructors, the system ensures that students get immediate feedback, which assists them to understand the concept.

There is a lot that AI can do to help improve the education sector. AI can ensure efficient and effective data analysis as it can gather and structure information to offer easily deliverable content that benefits both the students and teachers. With the use of AI, it can be able to process data in such a way that it would help teachers to create customer course materials and textbooks (Numan, 2016). In the future, AI may also be used to improve the education sector through intelligent machines that allow professors to open up opportunities for the global networking and make classrooms to be accessible to students across the world. With such capabilities, those students who cannot access the physical classrooms may participate in the virtual learning environment and benefit from the good education offered.

Concerns about AI

While AI has helped to improve various aspects, there is fear of the rapid growth in technology and the increasing dependence on it. In the military, the AI application has had a significant effect on warfare. The unmanned drones have been providing sustained surveillance and attacks on targets and small robots being used in disarming improvised explosive devices (Goertzel & Pennachin 2006). The dangers of this powerful technology have resulted in many concerns regarding artificial intelligence. Although some consider the creation of AI as being the biggest event in human history, it is also likely that it might be the end of humanity (Diao et al. 2009). The AI technologies pose immense benefits for humanity; however, there is need to give serious thought to the potential risks and challenges.  Some of the high-profile voices such as Elon Musk, Bill Gates, and Stephen Hawking have been raising concern regarding the possible dangers of the super smart AI. While these experts are not against AI, they are much concerned with the super intelligence.

With the advances in technology, there is the concern of job loss where machines have taken jobs that people did. Today, smart machines can do tasks that are done by information workers, which mean that these machines are substituting employees (Geist, 2015). For instance, the workers in the logistic and transport and also the office support are more likely to be substituted by computers. The fact that machines are going to take over most of the jobs that people do is a key concern regarding the AI (Diao et al. 2009). It is hard to determine where the technology could develop new jobs in the future, but easy to see the tasks that AI may take from humans. It is most likely that some of the repetitive and routine tasks will be automated. The shift to automation has been happening, but it is current affecting many industries (Geist, 2015). It is likely that we will adapt to the changes in technology through investing new kind of work and taking advantage of the unique human capabilities.

Another issue of concern is related to how AI may become a risk. For instance, the autonomous weapons are AI that has been programmed to kill. However, when it falls into the hands of the wrong person, the weapons may cause mass casualties. According to Geist (2015)), such a risk is one that is present with the narrow AI; however, the risk tends to grow with the increase in the levels of AI intelligence and autonomy. There is also the idea of AI being programmed to do something that is beneficial but instead develops a destructive way of achieving the goal. Such an issue may arise when we fail to align the goals of AI with our goals.

Conclusion

In the modern society, it is clear that people cannot live without these artificial intelligence applications that are capable of doing hard and dangerous works that humans cannot be able to do. Today, AI appears to be in every aspect of our lives and has created some of the greatest achievements in the society. The AI can interact with people and even provide the best advice without the involvement of human experts.  Considering the positive aspects related to AI, there appears as if there will be no turning back. With the new AI applications, it tends to introduce other issues such as businesses, privacy, and security issues that need to be addressed so that to succeed in the marketplace.  AI has been very effective in helping to solve problems that are beyond the human thinking level. While some of the characteristics of these machines are draw from the human intelligence, they tend to display more intelligence than human beings.

AI tends to be awakening enthusiasm and fear in the same way. Some consider the advances in AI as summoning the devil while other tends to have concerns about AI being a threat to humanity. Most people are afraid of AI because of the science fiction idea that the machines will take all of our jobs and even do unintended things. With the advancement in technology and the benefits presented, it is likely that the trend of AI systems will continue and shortly, the systems will be able to solve a wide variety of tasks and industries will continue with the adoption of AI. With the various concerns regarding the AI machines, the continuous development of AI will depend heavily on the moral opinion of the public regarding the responsibilities and benefits of AI, businesses gaining competitive advantage from using AI, and the funding for research and development of AI.  AI presents some opportunities to help improve the society; however, there are some dangers that are associated with this technology advances. To ensure that we reduce the risk, it is necessary that the experts be very careful and also willing to learn to reduce the risks.

Reference

Dagli, C (2012). Artificial neural networks for intelligent manufacturing. Springer Publishing

Diao, L., Zuo, M., & Liu Q. (2009). The Artificial Intelligence in Personal Knowledge Management. Second International Symposium on the Knowledge Acquisition and Modeling. pp. 327-329

Geist, E (2015). Is artificial intelligence existential threat to humanity? 

Goertzel, B. & Pennachin, C. (2006). Artificial General Intelligence. New York, Springer‐Verlag

Jones, T (2015). 

Sherry Roberts is the author of this paper. A senior editor at MeldaResearch.Com in best custom research papers if you need a similar paper you can place your order from nursing paper writing service.