Course : What is Artificial Intelligence?
Course code : ENG474
Artificial Intelligence, its goals and its history
What is Artificial Intelligence (AI)?
AI (Artificial Intelligence) is a machine’s ability to perform cognitive functions as humans do, such as perceiving, learning, reasoning, and solving problems. The benchmark for AI is the human level concerning in teams of reasoning, speech, and vision.
Experts regard artificial intelligence as a factor of production, which has the potential to introduce new sources of growth and change the way work is done across industries. For instance, this PWC article predicts that AI could potentially contribute $15.7 trillion to the global economy by 2035. China and the United States are primed to benefit the most from the coming AI boom, accounting for nearly 70% of the global impact.
Goals of Artificial Intelligence
Here are the main Goals of AI:
- It helps you reduce the amount of time needed to perform specific tasks.
- Making it easier for humans to interact with machines.
- Facilitating human-computer interaction in a way that is more natural and efficient.
- Improving the accuracy and speed of medical diagnoses.
- Helping people learn new information more quickly.
- Enhancing communication between humans and machines.
A Brief History of Artificial Intelligence
Here’s a brief timeline of the past six decades of how AI evolved from its inception.
1956 - John McCarthy coined the term ‘artificial intelligence’ and had the first AI conference.
1969 - Shakey was the first general-purpose mobile robot built. It is now able to do things with a purpose vs. just a list of instructions.
1997 - Supercomputer ‘Deep Blue’ was designed, and it defeated the world champion chess player in a match. It was a massive milestone by IBM to create this large computer.
2002 - The first commercially successful robotic vacuum cleaner was created.
2005 - 2019 - Today, we have speech recognition, robotic process automation (RPA), a dancing robot, smart homes, and other innovations make their debut.
2020 - Baidu releases the LinearFold AI algorithm to medical and scientific and medical teams developing a vaccine during the early stages of the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) pandemic. The algorithm can predict the RNA sequence of the virus in only 27 seconds, which is 120 times faster than other methods.
So, how do you use A.I. in your everyday life? Give examples and discuss them with your classmates in the forum section!