When I began thinking about what sort of blog I wanted to create I racked my brains on various topics of digital marketing, from social media to content marketing to blogging about blogging. I’ve decided to begin my blogging journey by exploring and sharing with my readers about all things AI (Artificial Intelligence).
I work in a company where AI is at the forefront of what we do. Our mission is to help brands grow in the AI era. I understand it, my co-workers largely understand it, but If I was asked to put AI simply to my mother, for example or conduct an “elevator” pitch, I would probably ramble on and over complicate the most basic premise.
Over the last week I explored various definitions of AI. Here are two that I found most memorable.
Qualcomm have an interesting short video on Youtube that explains AI in 101 seconds. It is described as “Techniques that help machines and computers mimic human behaviour”. I like the comparison they use of thinking about AI like opening the layers in a Russian wedding doll. The highest level is the device being smart. The next is machine learning, which is a variety of techniques that help to make the device smart. At the core, is the deep learning, which holds all the algorithms and complex equations.
Raj Ramesh says the easiest way to understand AI is to think of it in the context of a human. AI is described as a “broad branch of computer science, aimed at creating systems that can function intelligently and independently”. The fact that was driven home is that machines are smart due to AI, but AI still has a dependency on people – we are making it possible. The next stage we will see is AI “walking on its own” and devices that are powered by AI will make our lives easier and more exciting.
I will explore some common examples of how AI is used today in my next post.
I can’t talk about AI without mentioning and recognizing Alan Turing who first posed the question “Can machines think”? in 1950. The term AI hadn’t even been coined, (this was to happen in 1956 by John McCarthy). Not so long after the first computer had been invented, Turing famously introduced the Turing Test, to assess if a computer was capable of thinking. To think that almost 70 years ago these subjects were starting to be explored. It feels like we should be further ahead than we are by now….. but maybe my eyes and ears just haven’t been exposed to all the uses and developments in this area!
In my next post I will see just how far we have come, how AI is being used today and if it really is making human lives easier and more exciting.
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A closer look at AI today 