Artificial intelligence is now pervasive in many aspects of our daily life. Our smartphones, cybersecurity, and automobiles all now use AI technology. But where did AI start, and what does the future hold for it?
Here are some fascinating AI-related facts you might not be aware of.
1. AI Was First Conceptualized in the 1600s
While the Greeks described "intelligent robots" in religious mythology, the idea of artificial intelligence was first put out by German mathematician and philosopher Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz in the late seventeenth century.
At the age of 20, Leibniz proposed a hypothesis that may be utilised to enable an automated idea generation system. He proposed the hypothesis that all human thoughts, regardless of their scope, may be quantified and reduced to a complex amalgam of core ideas. Leibniz thus proposed that a machine might do the same thing by replicating this combination.
This hypothetical system was dubbed "the great instrument of reason" by Leibniz, who postulated that it would be able to respond to any queries raised. This notion of a mind machine, however, was heavily contested. Some people still maintain the ancient belief that human cognition is a more mystical or unrepeatable form of expression than anything that comes down to science.
We have yet to see a machine that could answer every question, and this "great instrument of reason" was never completely developed. However, significant efforts are being made to develop such a machine, as seen by ChatGPT and other such tools (which we'll explore later).
2. The Term "Artificial Intelligence" Was Coined in 1956
The phrase "artificial intelligence" wasn't really coined until 1956 at a conference at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire, despite the fact that the ideas underlying it had been explored for millennia. The name "artificial intelligence" and the area of study were both created during this meeting.
Allen Newell, Cliff Shaw, and Herbert Simon unveiled their Logic Theorist programme, which was created to mimic the way the human mind thinks and solves problems.
Marvin Minsky, a cognitive scientist at MIT, and a number of other well-known scholars and scientists remarked about their confidence in this technology after learning about the Logic Theorist programme. In the 1950s, British mathematician Alan Turing published a paper on artificial intelligence in which he addressed creating autonomously reasoning computers and evaluating their intelligence.
3. AI Can Be Found Everywhere Today
Though all-knowing machines or robots that behave exactly like humans aren't yet a reality, artificial intelligence (AI) is undoubtedly being created and improved upon every year and is now being employed in a variety of ways across several sectors.
Start by checking your smartphone! Whether it's Google Assistant, Siri, Bixby, Cortana, or Alexa, AI is employed in voice assistants. These virtual assistants utilise artificial intelligence to recognise your voice and respond to your commands. AI is used in both object identification software (like Samsung's Bixby Vision) and the facial recognition function on your phone.
Additionally, the manufacturing, educational, and healthcare sectors are now utilising AI. AI is being developed, for instance, to assist doctors with diagnosing patients and formulating treatment strategies. To provide doctors more time in their daily schedules, AI may eventually be utilised to automate certain tedious tasks.
Artificial intelligence is also present in automobiles. Tesla, a renowned manufacturer of electric vehicles, employs AI in its autopilot feature to let its vehicles see forthcoming lengths of road and make judgements depending on what the system detects.
In 2021, Tesla also made its AI-powered Tesla Bot available to the public. This machine is made to carry out repetitive chores that people often find boring. Who knows, maybe one day this robot will fold your laundry!
4. AI Can Now Hold Conversations
Launched by OpenAI in November 2022, ChatGPT is an AI-powered chatbot. ChatGPT appears to be a standard chatbot at first glance, but it has been trained on vast quantities of data using a big language model developed by the Generative Pre-trained Transformer, enabling it to engage in in-depth conversations on a wide variety of subjects.
Since ChatGPT is not sentient, it cannot have an opinion of its own. This is true for all other AI-powered chatbots (such those developed by Microsoft Bing AI and Google Bard), which some people see favourably (more on that in a moment). As a result, you are unable to ask ChatGPT personal inquiries or for its opinions on certain issues. It mostly offers tools and information, but it may also process language so that users feel like they are speaking.
AI chatbots are becoming widespread, thus these technologies will probably keep evolving. A chatbot with AI-based sentience could appear in the future.
5. AI Isn't Perfect—Far From It
Even while scientists and engineers are undoubtedly making significant advancements in AI, the field has not yet achieved its pinnacle. We haven't yet created a machine that can think similarly to a person, and we're undoubtedly a long way from building the kinds of AI-powered robots that appear in science fiction movies.
Machine learning is an essential component of AI. This phrase is self-explanatory and refers to a machine that learns on its own, accumulates information and experience, and adapts to its environment. The limitations in this domain, however, fundamentally restrict what artificial intelligence is capable of.
What still is AI unable to do?
First off, because AI lacks what is known as "common sense," it still can't handle situations the way humans can. This severely restricts the jobs and concepts that AI can execute and comprehend. AI still struggles to make last-minute adjustments. In other words, AI isn't particularly good at improvising. Additionally, this has a detrimental impact on how well it can perform.
The capacity for ethics is another quality that AI lacks, compared to (most) humans. AI cannot make judgements based on wellbeing or the greater good since it lacks intrinsic values or morals. When compared to humans, AI is fairly primitive due to all of these variables taken together.
Another problem that is raising a lot of worry is AI delusion. When an AI system "hallucinates," it gives a response to a prompt that is false yet thinks it is completely right. Responses from hallucinations may be untrue, difficult to understand, exaggerated, or even biassed. In a time when more people are starting to rely heavily on AI for information, such as news and statistics, this is a significant problem.
But there is a future for AI, and it's an exciting one. However, a computer with more sophisticated capabilities will be involved in this. Additionally, if you enjoy science fiction films, you are aware that anything may go wrong.
6. People Are Scared of AI
Humans are now the most intellectual species on earth. But if AI develops at the current rate, it won't be long before we encounter a sentient, intelligent, or perhaps significantly more intelligent species than ourselves. Or to put it another way, we shall arrive at the "singularity."
Why is this a problem, then? Well, as you might anticipate, a computer that is more intelligent or faster than us poses a threat to mankind. And a lot of people are afraid of this prospect.
According to a 2019 Statista poll, 46% of Americans believe that attaining the singularity will have unfavourable or catastrophic effects. Only 27% of poll respondents thought this would benefit mankind in the long run. Similar circumstances exist in the UK, where 60% of individuals, according to Digital Intelligence, dread AI.
Many people also worry that AI will eventually supplant them as employees. Even while automation is already pervasive in most industries, the use of AI may render an entirely new category of occupations disposable.
The regulation of AI may help curb these concerns, though no one knows how things will play out here.
