Friday, September 20, 2013

How Far Has AI Come?

Artificial Intelligence continues to grow. An interesting article from The Guardian spoke about artificial intelligence and how it still grows today. Most of us have heard of Alan Turing, I’m sure. Computer science majors certainly should have heard of Alan Turing. The Guardian’s article, entitled “To Turing and beyond: the future of artificial intelligence”, mentioned how the consumer-brand relationship can certainly grow thanks to this growth. It starts with a quote:
“In 1950, computer science pioneer Alan Turing famously predicted that “… in about 50 years’ time, it will be possible to programme computers…to make them play the imitation game so well that an average interrogator will not have more than 70% chance of making the right identification (between computer and human) after five minutes of questioning.”
It then mentions how Turing was spot on. It is true, for sure. We look at a few consumer brands with artificially intelligent devices and realize that they can be attractive. One example would be the IPhone’s Siri. It is possible to have a conversation with Siri, if you so choose. Another example of interacting with computerized voices would be when someone calls a store or restaurant and they receive, not a human, but a machine on the other side. The machine will attempt to understand what you are saying to it and translate it in a way that those at the store may understand what you are saying. Often times, however, the machine does not really understand what you are saying to it.
It is great to have these machines, but their non-personable voice can be very off-putting as well. They sound the same often times. There is no distinguishable voice between the voice at your local pizza place and the airport you are trying to reach. The personal touch between humans is fading away behind these machines. Some do not mind that at all, but it can be something that those who are more “old-school” cannot get behind and support.
There is also the fact that these machines are not nearly as intelligent as humans are. They can make a person with an impatient personality frustrated. I have seen it with my very eyes with some people. They get visibly annoyed because the machine simply does not understand like a human would in their interactions with each other. But not all is lost with these intelligent machines.
Humans have a desire for speed. They want things done quickly. There is a huge positive in being able to do things on your own. Consider the supermarkets of today. Most of them have self-checkout machines. All they have to do is scan their items, the machine will tell them how much they have to pay, they bag their groceries, and then they are on their way. This has become so popular because it is simply convenient. Sometimes, the cashiers simply do not move as fast as the consumer does in checking items out, so the consumer can do it themselves. There are occasionally errors that require seeing someone to fix the machine, but that does not happen often.
In reality, artificial intelligence has come far. However, they have not come as far as Alan Turing predicted, I would say. Artificial intelligence is getting there, for sure, but I think most interrogators can still tell between an intelligent human and an intelligent machine with a far greater success rate over 30%. Can artificial intelligence become more life-changing in the future? Can it replace human interaction to a far greater extent? I think it will be successful in doing both these things, but I do not think it will be anytime soon.

http://www.theguardian.com/media-network/media-network-blog/2013/sep/13/turing-artificial-intelligence-brands-consumers

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