Beginners Guide to AI (Artificial Intelligence)

Artificial Intelligence (AI), also known as Machine Intelligence, is the ability of a system to “think” and learn like humans. AI starts as a computer program, written by humans. These computer programs allow machines to ‘think’ like humans and mimic their thought processes and actions. AI makes it possible for machines like computers to perform these human-like tasks by learning from experience.

Using AI, a machine takes data and information, known as the input, and performs calculations that produce a result, or output. AI continually adjusts the calculation[SD1] s to gain the best results or the most advantageous and favorable output.

AI is everywhere and it's already making a huge impact on our lives. AI systems and programs can basically do anything humans can do when it comes to learning. They can solve problems, plan, reason, make perceptions, move, and even display social intelligence, ingenuity, and skill. AI does not allow them to think and act like humans.

AI is everywhere today. It is used to recommend what you should buy online, to understanding what you say to virtual assistants such as Amazon's Alexa and Apple's Siri, and it is used to recognise who and even what is in a photo.

Artificial intelligence is not a new idea. Over 2700 years ago, long before AI, virtual assistants and self-driving cars became reality, tales of the giant bronze robot Talos, the artificial woman Pandora, and their creator, the god Hephaestus, filled the imaginations of people in ancient Greece. Hephaestus is the Greek god of invention and blacksmithing. Talos was made to protect the island of Crete from invaders by marching around the island three times every day, hurling huge rocks at approaching enemy ships.

It is estimated that AI will beat humans at all tasks within 45 years and automate all human jobs within 120 years. That said, some AI experts believe such projections are wildly optimistic given our limited understanding of the human brain and believe that AGI is still centuries away. We will see.

But it may be closer than we all think.

AI uses algorithms. An algorithm is a set of instructions that a computer can execute. A complex algorithm is often built on top of other, simpler, algorithms. A simple example of an algorithm is the following recipe like Chocolate Chip Cookies.

It is at this point the network will have 'learned' how to carry out a particular task.

By the way, did you know that the human brain contains 86 billion neurons, with 16 billion neurons in the cerebrum!

A.I. is made up of four parts:

Reasoning

Natural Language Processing (NLP)

Planning

And Machine Learning (ML)

Some of the main use-cases for the AI

Speech and language recognition

Facial recognition and surveillance

Healthcare

Robotics

It is very much the case that AI is a technology that will augment, rather than replace, many jobs. Sometimes, nothing can replace the human touch.  Among AI experts there's a broad range of opinions about how quickly AI systems will surpass human capabilities.