How AI Is Changing the Way We Live ↦

Laurent Bride writing for IT ProPortal:

According to an Accenture study, artificial intelligence (AI) is going to add a further US$814 billion in 2035 to the UK’s economy – with rates increasing from 2.5 per cent to 3.9 per cent in 2035.

The dystopian vision of robots assuming complete control of society is unlikely; the nuances of perception, intuition, and plain old “gut-check reactions” still elude machines

Rather than being frightened by the perceived threat of AI, it would be wise to embrace the possibilities that AI offers.

With basic AI, the processing system, embedded within the appliance (local) or connected to a network (cloud), learns and interprets responses based on “experience.” That experience comes in the form of training through using data sets that simulate the situations we want the system to learn from. This is the confluence of Machine Learning (ML) and AI.

There is significant revenue to be earned from Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) over the next years and beyond. Thus, it is expectable that many companies – not only those in the tech sector – keep exploring (and exploiting) tools and mechanisms to get a share of this pie.

AI and ML will not change the way we live. AI and ML are already doing that. As it happens with any emerging technology that affects people’s lives, they are under people’s scrutiny. It’s scary to think that jobs can be replaced, but great to know that that we’ll be living longer and better; it’s creepy to hear about a self-driving car crash, but it is great to think that many lives will be saved just because machines (smart cars) can’t get tired or fall asleep while driving. Also, if this all sounds futuristic, what about the awesomeness in asking one of the existing personal assistants (Alexa, Siri, Cortana or Google) to add items to our shopping list and manage our calendars without us even moving a finger? These are not only solving a problem; these are testing future usability too. AI and ML are one of the key drivers for innovation to be applied in medical devices, self-driving cars and others that, today, are still novelty and we fear so much.

I couldn’t agree more with Bride on “Rather than being frightened by the perceived threat of AI, it would be wise to embrace the possibilities that AI offers.”