Is Artificial Intelligence (AI) taking over the world?

Artificial Intelligence is training the machines in such a way that it can do tasks that needs a certain degree of intelligence which was supposed to be done by humans. The objective of ai is to make systems function intelligently and independently. AI works in two ways: symbolic based and data-based (machine learning).

Are we worried about AI taking over the world?

“The development of full artificial intelligence could spell the end of the human race. It would take off on its own, and re-design itself at an ever increasing rate. Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn’t compete, and would be superseded.”

Stephen Hawking told the BBC.

These are the kinds of doubts that arise when people talk about AI. Questions about AI’s sustainability and safety often come up. So yes, we can certainly say that there are some concerns about AI amongst people. 

What is Machine Learning?

It all started when great mathematician, Alan Turing asked the question Can machines think? changing the scenario of the world in less than a decade. His paper Computing Machinery and Intelligence (1950) established a vision for artificial intelligence.

Later on, Arthur Samuel coined the term Machine Learning in 1959 while at IBM. It had the idea of feeding machines with the data in such a way that machines can learn from data and eventually give better results. It was attempted by using various symbolic methods which were later named Neural Networks. The whole purpose was to make machines intelligent. So that they can understand requests, make amendments and give appropriate conclusions.

There are three types of machine learning algorithms: supervised, unsupervised, reinforcement. There are a variety of models that can make this work. Models such as Artificial Neural Networks, Bayesian Networks, etc.

What is a neural network?

It consists of many small units called neurons. These neurons are arranged in different layers. And these layers are interconnected through weighted connections with a real number. The value of a neuron is multiplied with the weight and bias value is created by adding the weights of a particular neuron. This value is further put into an activated function which gives the value for neurons. This value is further passed to the next layer. This is the functioning of the whole network. Now the real deal behind it is to find the correct weight so as to have a correct assumption or conclusion. There are various machine learning algorithms that can help us perform these analyses.

How is AI changing the world?

AI is a powerful tool which is helping companies to have better strategies. Machines can learn a large amount of data in various dimensions. This is the reason why it can look for lots of high dimensional data and can determine the pattern. Once it learns these patterns it can come up with conclusions or can classify or predict.

In our daily lives, we see various examples of AI. Be it Siri, Alexa or Cortana. Even getting recommendations for the books or smart replies in Gmail or Chatbots.

AI had already become a part of our lives and whether we like to believe or not we have become dependent on it. AI may not replace human interaction. But it would definitely be better customer experience. Know how AI is influencing the development in Canada.

Is AI going to take over the world?

Well, there is no clear answer to this question, all we can do is speculate, but the question we should ask is, do we need to be scared of AI? And the answer to this question is no.

Every time a new invention takes place, it brings up some kind of trepidation with it. The invention of phones made people think, the basic civil conversation would end. The invention of cars made people think it would be killing families. All this is true to an extent. But all these inventions brought to us things that extended the human experience in profound ways.

That is the whole point of developing intelligent machines. Machines that can help humanity do things that are too tiresome and difficult to do at the present mark of time. Fearing a super-intelligent AI makes no sense as it would not be programmed but rather taught, eventually embodying our core values. The AI that we’ll ( and future generations) will work on will be to assist us and not take over us. We must learn from the past and try not to be scared of innovation.