What Is Artificial Intelligence?

Date First Published: 29th October 2023

Topic: Computer Systems

Subtopic: Computer Software

Article Type: Computer Terms & Definitions

Difficulty Level: 4/10

Learn about what artificial intelligence is in this article.

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the use of bots, software, or machines to mimic human intelligence processes, such as solving problems, perceiving new data, answering questions, and more.

AI can handle all kinds of tasks across different industries, including simple and complex ones. It uses algorithms to process the data it receives and then makes predictions based on those inputs. Most AIs train using machine learning, which learns from the data inputted without being explicitly programmed to do so to improve its reliability over time. They use past data as input to predict new values.

Uses Of AI

Common uses for AI include:

• Chatbots - These can mimic a real person and have human-like conversations over online chat. Modern chatbots are commonly used in customer service roles, helping people to resolve simple problems, which saves having to use a customer service agent for every question.
• Speech recognition - Speech recognition allows people to speak to bots to ask questions, which will return with an answer. An example of speech recognition is voice search, which enables users to conduct searches using their voice.
• Purchase recommendation engines - These look for trends in someone's purchasing history and suggest products or services that a user may want based on those trends. For example, Amazon suggests products that a user may want to purchase based on items they have previously purchased.
• Healthcare - AI takes large amounts of data, analyses it, and then predicts solutions to fight and cure diseases. Although AI cannot replace medical professionals, it helps them to work more efficiently and effectively.
• Security - AI can detect and analyse suspicious patterns of activity. For example, websites may detect suspicious activity and require users to complete a CAPTCHA before continuing to browse the website if they detect bot behaviour.
• Finance - An example of the use of AI in finance is a credit scoring system when deciding to lend money to someone. It works by referring all approvals to the senior management team and returning any disapprovals back to the applicant. The computer is given a set of rules from a software program and processes information according to these rules.
• Spam detection. Email rules can be set to detect spam and automatically move it to the junk folder. For example, messages may be categorised as spam if they contain certain words or links, or come from a blacklisted email address or domain name.

Difference Between Weak AI and Strong AI

Weak AI, also known as narrow AI, is designed to complete a specific task and to seem very intelligent at it. Virtual personal assistants, such as Apple Siri use weak AI. Strong AI can mimic human functions, such as planning, reasoning, planning, and problem-solving and can learn through input, constantly progressing and advancing its abilities over time.

Advantages and Disadvantages Of AI

• It can effectively automate tasks done by humans, reducing the chances of human errors and saving time. For example, AI can automate customer service work, fraud detection, lending approval, and quality control without any human interaction. Sometimes, AI can perform tasks better than humans would.
• Increased accuracy. AI is quicker because data can be processed through automated systems without breaks. AI tools can often complete tasks more accurately, especially when it comes to repetitive and detail-oriented tasks.
• AI systems are available 24/7 and do not need to sleep or take breaks, improving productivity.

• It lacks creativity. Since AI can only make predictions based on algorithms and the rules it has been given, it cannot fully mimic the capacity that humans have for creativity.
• Lack of transparency. AI systems can be biased or poorly written and there is no way to know the exact reason why the AI is performing poorly.
• Because user data is stored when using AI, there can be privacy issues. Some owners may be able to peek at the data that is processed and sell it to third parties that will misuse it.

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