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ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
Concepts, capabilities, and the future of AI.
Learning Objectives
Fundamental Concepts
Understand the core definitions and building blocks of artificial intelligence.
Key Challenges
Identify the philosophical and practical difficulties in strictly defining AI.
Capabilities
Describe the diverse types of tasks and functions that modern AI can perform.
Time to Get Fluent in AI
Beyond Science Fiction
Artificial intelligence has long been the stuff of dreams and sci-fi novels. But those future scenarios are no longer just imagination.
The Age of AI is Here
Researchers and computer scientists have turned these dreams into reality. We are already well into the "Age of AI," where intelligent systems are part of our daily lives, from work to school.
The Difficulty of Defining AI
The Sci-Fi Distortion
Our understanding is often skewed by movies depicting AI as nefarious entities bent on world domination. This dramatic view complicates the reality of helpful, functional AI tools.
The Human Benchmark
We tend to measure all intelligence against our own. However, just as animals like octopuses show unique forms of intelligence, AI possesses specialized intelligence distinct from humans.
Diverse Forms of Intelligence
Human
Diverse skills: One might excel at public speaking but struggle with math. Intelligence is not a single metric.
Nature
Animals demonstrate complex problem-solving. Slime molds can solve mazes; crows use tools.
Artificial
AI should be viewed similarly: specialized systems designed to be excellent at specific tasks.
Main Types of
AI Capabilities
From understanding language to navigating the physical world.
Language Processing (NLP)
Speech Production & Comprehension
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GPT & Transformers Tools like ChatGPT can interpret everyday language and act on it.
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Applications Answering questions, writing stories, summarizing texts, generating code.
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Business Impact Revolutionizing communication from support agents to automated emails.
Numeric Predictions
Forecasting the Future
AI models excel at predicting specific values. This often takes the form of a confidence score between 0 and 1.
Use Cases
- Weather forecasting
- Predicting sales revenue
- Stock prices
- Dynamic pricing
Classifications
Fraud Detection
Financial institutions use AI to flag suspicious transactions and separate legitimate activity from theft.
Medical Diagnosis
Doctors use AI to classify medical images and data to assist in diagnosing illnesses accurately.
Content Filtering
Social media platforms rely on AI to identify and hide toxic comments or classify emails as spam.
Robotic Navigation
Some AI systems specialize in moving through physical spaces. They adapt to changing environments in real-time.
Autonomous Vehicles
Cars that stay in lanes and adapt to traffic.
Supply Chain
Optimizing logistics amid changing conditions.
Rescue Robots
Traversing disaster zones to provide aid.
Under The Hood
AI Models
Think of AI models like a bird watcher. The more examples they see, the better they get at recognizing patterns. They are smart programs trained on vast amounts of data to make decisions.
Neural Networks
These are the tools used to train models. Mimicking the human brain, they consist of nodes and layers that process information, allowing the AI to identify complex relationships in data.
The Big Picture
Artificial intelligence is the ability of computers to perform skills typically associated with human intuition and reasoning.
From Language Processing and Numeric Predictions to Navigation and Classifications, AI is rapidly transforming business, education, and industry.
Image Sources
Vecteezy (Typing Man)
https://static.vecteezy.com/.../motivated-male-writes...Google Research (NLP Brain)
https://storage.googleapis.com/gweb-research2023-media/original_images/PITOM3_ResultsHERO.jpgVecteezy (Robot Running)
https://static.vecteezy.com/.../continuous-one-line-drawing-robot...Berkeley SCET (Abstract Brain)
https://scet.berkeley.edu/.../abstract-brain-shape-with-circuits.webp