Artificial Intelligence better known as AI has seen a burst in popularity, from being covered extensively in the news articles to the recently published scientific journals AI has taken our world by a storm. It is not a newly discovered field, but has rather been around since the early 90’s. It is a term that was coined by John McCarthy in the year 1950, AI has been the response to the researchers who pondered the question, “Can machines think?”. It is the ability of the machines to exhibit human-like intelligence but unlike the name of the first Hollywood movie that pops up in your head, it is not that simple. Machines can not understand human beings and they do not possess the ability to think on their own, rather machines have higher computational capabilities as compared to humans which is put into use by AI scientists. Essentially, AI is used to find patterns in large and very large amounts of data points and using this ability the data points are segregated into classes in order to find a meaning of the large quantity of data. AI which is often being portrayed as an evil job taking system is in fact just a tool for ordinary human beings and researchers. In this article we will list the ways in which AI is and will contribute to changing the social landscape.
Tired of filtering out junk emails? Did you know that AI can help you out in the filtering of emails! On an average a person receives around 100 to 120 emails per day, that is the non-spammy ones and over 45.6% of the entire data on the internet today consists of spam emails. AI can be used as a tool to filter out the spam emails from the non-spam ones and the best part is that it can learn to most past the tricky subjects and email contents to determine the behaviour of the spammer thus keeping you safe! This is keeping in mind that an average user receives over 73% of phishing emails. We can see how a simple tool like AI can keep us safe and also make sure that our mailbox remains uncluttered.
Computer vision is a term closely related with AI, it makes use of the camera systems to detect and identify objects and people. Here, the AI system works to increase the accuracy of the detection systems by using feature detection. This technology finds its use at the airport security and the street CCTVs as it can quickly detect unusual behaviour, unusual objects and can be used 24/7 without worrying about the low accuracy rates throughout the day. It has also been actively used in the military where the enemy drones, soldiers and aircrafts can be detected to maintain effective monitoring. This, coupled up with the facial recognition system allows the law enforcers to track the mischievous elements of the society and deliver speedy justice.
Another field where AI will create a boom will be the field of education. Imagine having a personal tutor at your fingertips, for solving all your queries just the way you understand it. This will be monumental in encouraging students to learn actively and create interest in studies. Also with AI you can translate the text on the fly, thus breaking the barriers in communication with active live transcribing of educational modules from different parts of the world and the best part is that even the old lectures can be reused as AI works regardless the time period of the delivery of lectures. This along with computer vision can help in generating detailed insights about the behaviour of the student in the classroom, their focus during the lectures, their participation levels and thus help in a holistic improvement of the students.
Another font to use the AI can be a part of the public administration by reducing the paperwork, helping in generation of quicker responses and an overall increase in the efficiency of the bureaucracy. It paired with tools like Skype and Duolingo can also help in international interactions between the world leaders by closing the language barrier. Thus AI can allow for automation in the government machinery and help the civil servants analyse complex problems all the while coming up with faster solutions to tackle them. It can also help with increasing the focus on sustainable development and to achieve the global sustainable development goals.
Architecture in another area which can make use of AI, with powerful tools for graphical illustrations to help in faster completion of projects to techniques like swarm optimization, fuzzy logic and pattern recognition to help with developing more stable and sustainable structures. AI has the ability to generate multiple design options quickly, making use of the generative software powered by AI, this will allow for a faster evaluation of the designs thus shortening the time and resources spent on creating prototypes.
AI will definitely be a part of healthcare in the future, from collecting the patient history to generating an initial diagnosis, AI finds a large number of use cases in the healthcare industry. As it has the ability to compute a large amount of data, when fed with data from other machines like MRI scans, algorithms can easily find patterns using the supervised learning techniques which can then be put to practise to detect real life cases of brain tumours and cancer cells. Coupled with robotics, AI can find its use in the operation theatres in assisting the surgeons with complex procedures and with use of other efficient technology like high speed internet, it is possible to perform remote surgeries thus increasing the reach of welfare and relief to the patients.
It will definitely be an exciting world with limitless possibilities to live in with the advent of AI integration into our social atmosphere. It is a great boon to be able to use machines and their highly capable processors for faster computation and for making the lives of everyone easier and more fulfilling. We should be aware that we now live in a world where this technology is available to everyone at the click of a button for anything that is a boon can also become a curse.
Author – Dhruva Bisht
Student at Graphic Era University, Dehradun
