What is Artificial Intelligence: Types, History, and Future

Artificial intelligence (AI) is currently one of the hottest buzzwords in tech and with good reason. The last few years have seen several techniques that have previously been in the realm of science fiction slowly transform into reality.

Experts look at 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. According to the report, How AI Boosts Industry Profits and Innovations, AI is predicted to increase economic growth by an average of 1.7 percent across 16 industries by 2035. The report goes on to say that, by 2035, AI technologies could increase labor productivity by 40 percent or more, thereby doubling economic growth in 12 developed nations that continue to draw talented and experienced professionals to work in this domain.

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 much more to come.

What is Artificial Intelligence?

Artificial Intelligence is a method of making a computer, a computer-controlled robot, or software think intelligently like the human mind. AI is accomplished by studying the patterns of the human brain and by analyzing the cognitive process. The outcome of these studies develops intelligent software and systems. Researchers extend the goals of AI to the following:

1. Logical Reasoning

   AI programs enable computers to perform sophisticated tasks. On February 10, 1996, IBM’s Deep Blue computer won a game of chess against a former world champion, Garry Kasparov.

2. Knowledge Representation

   Smalltalk is an object-oriented, dynamically typed, reflective programming language that was created to underpin the “new world” of computing exemplified by “human-computer symbiosis.”

3. Planning and Navigation

   The process of enabling a computer to get from point A to point B. A prime example of this is Google’s self-driving Toyota Prius.

4. Natural Language Processing

   Set up computers that can understand and process language.

5. Perception

   Use computers to interact with the world through sight, hearing, touch, and smell.

6. Emergent Intelligence

   Intelligence that is not explicitly programmed, but emerges from the rest of the specific AI features. The vision for this goal is to have machines exhibit emotional intelligence and moral reasoning.

Some of the tasks performed by AI-enabled devices include:

• Speech recognition
• Object detection
• Solve problems and learn from the given data
• Plan an approach for future tests to be done