AI not similar to what’s portrayed in sci-fi, it's here to enhance our lives

Many people think of artificial intelligence as self-aware computers, evil robots, and digital armageddon. But AI technology is often misunderstood, and the many benefits of machine intelligence are easy to overlook.

Contemporary AI is not an almighty superintelligence, it’s actually a cluster of related technologies—machine learning, supervised learning, and computer vision, for example—that allows companies to automate tasks at a large scale."There are a lot of real risks to AI," said Stephen Shankland of CNET, like "job displacement, more advanced weapons, and new ways for humans to be bad to other humans." But sci-fi scenarios "vastly overstate the risk."

AI is already deeply embedded in our homes, work, and the world around us. The AI we experience today and will encounter in the near future is embedded in devices like Amazon's Alexa, Google Home, and Apple's Siri. These AIs are not optimized to be independently intelligent, but to excel at so-called "smart" interactions. They are designed to be guides, assistants, and provide memory extension.


On the road with AI

Automated smart interactions are powered by algorithms coded by humans and then "learn" by processing a massive collection of data. The process--called supervised learning-- allows AI to adapt to ever-changing real-world conditions and plays a key role in emerging technologies like self-driving cars.

"A self-driving car knows how to avoid a walker and knows how to stay in the right lane because humans have sat down with images taken from the front of these cars and said, 'this is a human, this is a lane that marks the edge of the road, ”Figure Eight CTO Rob Monroe told CBS. "It's these thousands and thousands of hours of human feedback that ultimately enables a self-driving car to be trained to automate the task" of driving.


Code with a heart

With the usage of AI, the healthcare industry has been making notable breakthroughs. Using "computer vision," a process that enables AI to identify symbols and pictures, machines are able to give physicians and radiologists information necessary for diagnosing serious heart conditions and, brain and lung cancer.

"Normally a radiologist has to be highly trained to look at the organ, and spend a lot of time sometimes just drawing contours by hand, like the ventricles or the atrium," Fabian Becker, CEO of Arterys told CBS. Using AI to assist diagnosis can save lives. "We are working on automating that process, and it's really a quantum leap because the system can propose a suggestion to the physicians" in a fraction of the time it takes a human.


Growing the future

The agricultural sector is also profiting from machine learning and computer vision AI systems. Farmers use machine intelligence to identify weeds, to select fields, and to optimize planting times. Algorithms rapidly filter the collection of climate data and accurately differentiate between crops and weeds using databases loaded with thousands of images.

Artificial intelligence is easily misinterpreted, said quantitative futurist Amy Webb, because AI is equaled to the way our brains work and how we think. Sci-fi scenarios about robot overlords and machine superintelligence eclipsing humans come from a fear of the unknown.


The article first appeared on CBS News