ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE (AI)

Artificial intelligence is the intelligent behavior by machines, rather than the natural
intelligence of humans and other animals. Artificial Intelligence is defined as the study of
intelligent agents in computer science. An intelligent agent is any device that perceives its
environment and takes actions that maximize its chance of success at some goal. Informally,
the term artificial intelligence is applied when a machine mimics cognitive functions that
humans associate with other human minds, such as learning and problem solving skills.
From SIRI, CORTANA to autopilot cars of Tesla, the Artificial Intelligence is progressing and
improving rapidly. While Science fiction movies often portray artificial intelligence as robots
with human like characteristics only, the AI can encompass anything from Google’s search
algorithms to IBM’s Watson to autonomous weapons. Artificial intelligence today is properly
known as narrow AI (or weak AI), in that it is designed to perform a narrow task (e.g. only
facial recognition, internet searches, learning or only self-driving cars). However, the long
term goal is, of many researchers, to create a strong AI (general AI or AGI). While narrow AI
may outperform humans at whatever its specific task is, like solving equations or playing
chess, strong AI (AGI) would outperform humans at nearly every cognitive task.
The Artificial Intelligence had started to develop with the industrial revolution, but people
hadn’t realized that yet. When the industrial revolution started, people started to use new
manufacturing processes. In the early 1960s the US started the AI research and provided
huge amounts of funds. In 1990s, the AI was implemented when the first DOS operating
system came out. Since then the Artificial Intelligence is continuously growing.
The applications of artificial intelligence are vast and we can use AI to benefit ourselves.
Artificial Intelligence is rather complex in its nature. It is made up from a mixture of
mathematics, computer science and other difficult sciences and the combination of these
difficult sciences helps the machines to perform the tasks better than human beings.
Artificial intelligence increases the chance of reaching accuracy and reducing the
possibilities of doing errors. Artificial intelligence is being used in the exploration of space.
Robots are programmed in such a way that they have all the necessary information required
and from that information they can come up with a suitable reaction to different situations.
Artificial intelligence can also be used in exploration of minerals which are very difficult to
reach by humans. These machines can be used in fuel exploration as well and not only that
AI can be used deep inside the ocean where humans cannot go or stay longer due to high
pressure. These machines can be sent in the deep waters to explore the different species
inside water. AI can be used to detect the frauds and big banks and financial institutes use
these machines to organize, manage and keep their records safe. AIs can be used to perform
the tasks which are dangerous for humans to perform since we can alter/adjust their speed
and other functions. They are immune to most the factors which affect humans.
Alibaba Group is a Chinese e-commerce company. Its warehouse in China is run by just 60
robots. They work so efficiently that the productivity has increased by 3000%; these robots
can carry up to 500 kilograms of weight. Each robot has a laser system to prevent crashes
with each other and other stuff in the warehouse and when these robots are about to run
out of battery, they go to the charging ports in warehouse and charge themselves up. When
someone places an order, one robot goes out and locates and picks out the product out of
its 32,300 shelves. The robots are doing 70% of the work in the warehouse. Human labor
only packs and dispatches the orders.
Smartphones are the best example of how we are using Artificial Intelligence in our daily
life. I have mentioned earlier about SIRI and CORTANA, SIRI and CORTANA are basically two
voices which provide us with an answer when a question is asked or simply perform the task
which we ask them to do for ourselves. Not only SIR and CORTANA, the GPS or navigation
we use, while driving down a strange or new road, is Artificial Intelligence as well. AI can be
used in businesses. There are tasks in business that are highly repetitive and are performed
by humans. Automation process is being applied to perform those tasks. Many businesses
have integrated chatbots on their websites to provide better service to the customers.
Machines are making graphs, charts, and analyzing those graphs and charts. AI is used in
manufacturing the most. We can see that the most of the work while assembling a car is
done by machines. Even the body is painted by the machines in most of the automobile
manufacturing companies. With machines doing the most of the work, the rate of
production have also increased. AI used in healthcare can bring a big change. Many
companies are applying machine learning to make faster and better diagnoses than humans
can. IBM Watson is known as one of the best healthcare technologies. It can understand the
natural language and it is capable of responding to questions asked to it. The “Watson”
mines patients’ data and other available data sources to form a hypothesis.
Most of us would agree that AI, super-intelligent AI, is unlikely to show human emotions like
anger, pain, love and affection, hate. Machines can be used to work for long hours, they
won’t get tired they’re machines, they’re not humans. We, while working, will get tired a
sometime and we’ll also get distracted or bored while doing tasks. But machines won’t get
distracted, it won’t get tired, it won’t get bored. It’ll be doing its task which is assigned to it
until it’s finished. And that’s the best thing about machines!
Every man-made thing has advantages as well as disadvantages. Artificial Intelligence is also
a man-made “thing”, and it has its merits and demerits as well. The first and foremost
disadvantage of Artificial Intelligence is that it is very costly. AI is very expensive to create as
it is a very complex machine. Not only that, their repair and maintenance costs are also
huge. Their software needs frequent up gradation in order for the machine to be smarter
with every passing day. And if the machine breaks down, the process to retrieve the codes
and the re-installation process can also require huge amount of cash.
Another problem arises as the world is going towards automation. The problem is
unemployment. Machines have replaced or are replacing humans in every field of work. For
example there are self-checkout counters in superstores. Self-checkout counters are
basically counters where customers process their own purchases rather than an employ
doing that for them. This type of problem is increasing in every industry. There are
softwares for book-keeping which means that if 15 or 16 people were required to maintain
the accounts of a company, the company has upgraded to artificial intelligence and now, to
do the work 15 or 16 people, only 3 to 4 people are required to maintain the accounts with
the help of the software. The example of Alibaba which I have mentioned earlier perfectly
shows us how robots are taking over the jobs of humans. They’re efficient and all but they
have taken most of the jobs of humans. It is a huge advantage for the business owners as
their expenses are being cut down and the productivity of their business is increasing. But
the common people and the government see it as a disadvantage because of all the people
who lost their jobs.
AI might be faster and more efficient than humans, it is still a machine which is created by
humans. AI systems work according to the codes and algorithm installed into them and
come up with a solution using those algorithms only. These machines cannot take unique
circumstances and make judgment calls accordingly, while humans can do this. One
example is from the one of the attacks carried out in London earlier this year. The people
who were in the affected area wanted to get out of there quickly and almost everyone
called for Uber. This huge demand in customers caused Ubers’ system to charge surge prices
in the affected area. This would’ve never happened if people had called the famous London
Taxi. In fact, the drivers of the taxi were giving free rides to not only those who were injured
but those also who wanted to go to the hospital to donate blood or help the victims in any
way possible.
Some people, businesses completely rely on the technology and gadgets to do every day
task which humans can do themselves easily. This can and is leading people to the addiction
of the machines. Some of the people believe that the Artificial Intelligence can be threat to
the mankind and it might take over the control of this planet. Autonomous weapons are AI
systems which are programmed to kill. If it falls into the hands a wrong person, it could
result in mass casualties. AI system which is designed to complete the given task can take up
dangerous and destructive methods to complete the task.
The goal of keeping AI’s impact on society beneficial and positive have motivated the
researchers to do research in many fields, from business, economics and law to security
purposes such as verification and validation. The security threat/problem with artificial
intelligence is the same as it is with our laptops, computers or smartphones. The AI is a
computer itself and works the same way as our other electronic gadgets. AI can be hacked
or its system can also crash. Of course you wouldn’t want your self-driving car to “crash” in
the middle of the road. An important question, in the long term, is what will happen if we
make an AI so strong and “intelligent” that it becomes better at doing everything which
humans can and cannot do. Designing the AI system itself is a difficult and challenging task.
Inventing the revolutionary technologies might help us eradicate poverty, disease and war.
Creating a strong AI can be the biggest achievement in the history of science and
technology. We also need to accept the fact that artificial intelligence system can
intentionally or unintentionally cause a great harm.
Big names, like Elon Musk, Stephen Hawking, Bill Gates, in technology industry have
expressed their concern about the risks posed by AI. The ideas of strong AI (AGI) have been
used in science fiction movies for many decades in the past. There have been many
breakthroughs in the research of AI recently and many milestones have now been achieved.
It is said by many researchers that the super-intelligent AI will have the potential to
outperform humans and become more intelligent than humans, we still don’t know how are
they, AI, going to behave. We cannot rely on the past technological advances to predict the
future behavior of the AI.
The Artificial Intelligence is nothing like it is shown in the science fiction movies. Movies like
The Termination and IRobot and Wall-E. Robots with human like characteristics that develop
emotions and go rouge. It does not go rouge by itself. Google has developed self-driving cars
and one of those cars crashed because it changed the lane and put itself and the passenger
in front of and oncoming bus. This incident happened because the sensors and the
algorithm could not work together properly at that time. Artificial intelligences errors are
actually human errors. It has its advantages and as well as disadvantages. Almost every
single person on the face of earth is taking advantage from artificial intelligence. We should
constantly improve the artificial intelligence and make the most out of it. We should not
forget the importance of safety of humans. Proper researches should be done in order to
make the artificial intelligence more and more safe and secure and reliable. AI is the future
but we need to ensure that the “future” is safe and secure.

Danish Hussain Soomro (1747110)

BSAF-1A