What exactly is AI?

AI stands for artificial intelligence and by the end of this article it will be more than just another buzzword. Right now in tech industry, AI is all the hype. It completely changing the industry at all levels and sending ripple effects in other industries as well. At it's basic level it is just a computer that you can teach to recognize patterns so that it can predict human behavior.

AI Made Simple

Computers deal in explicit instructions, extremes, if you will. On and off, 1 and 0 , even programing is just explicit instructions written in a language that the computer can understand easier. If the user clicks the link, show this web page, for example, are instructions seen in most websites. The programmer is just telling the computer to perform a certain action if the required condition is met. What makes it difficult is that the programmer must plan for all other scenarios that may occur so that the computer knows what to do.

AI solves a lot of these issues by working with what is given and filling in the blank. The way it determines what to do is by being trained on millions of data examples and each time it is shown something it begins to recognize patterns from it. The more data it is trained on, the more it is able to refine its pattern recognition.

If you have a smart phone, it labels some phone numbers as "Spam Likely" when they call you. How does your phone determine that from just a random phone number? It could go by phone carriers labeling phone numbers but spammers and scammers are constantly switching up their tactics. Phone carriers actually have AI filters that learn from the millions of interactions of spam and legitamate phone calls. The AI finds the pattern, no matter how new the information is and eventually labels it properly.

You don't need to be some tech genius, AI can figure it out if you give it examples to work with.

You Already Been Using AI Without Knowing

For those of you that think AI is complicated, I want you to know that you already been using it. If you use:

Amazon/Netflix recommendations are based on you viewing data and what types items you click on
Gmail/Outlook spam filters are able automatically label spam without you having to sift through tons of emails
Face unlock on your phone uses the your face measurements to verify your face in different conditions
Google Maps predicts the best routes to take in order to get to your destination
Google search gives you information in the results page without you having to search a bunch of web pages

All of these are used by most people in some way without them realizing that they are using AI.

How Does AI Learn?

While AI is not quite as intelligent as a human yet, it does have the ability to:

Generalize: categorize things and treat them based on what they've seen before
Pattern recognition: find information based on other similar situations
Fill in the blanks: understand information and thoughts that are incomplete or left for interpretation
Improve with more data: The more you give it, the better it gets

Will AI Take My Job?

At the end of the day, AI is just math. What makes it such a phenomenon is that AI models have the entire internet at their disposal. When you have the entirety of the world wide web at your disposal, the world is your oyster. One important thing to note is that these models are not perfect. Sometimes they are trained on bad data or just have not learned enough to get it right. This can cause wrong answers and biased responses. Keep this in mind before you begin to rely too much on AI.

How Long Has AI Been Around?

AI was available to the public in the 1950s. So why is it just now the biggest thing the streets?

Data from the internet
More powerful computers to train and process the data
Refined algorithms have made it possible to do way more than we have previously

With these factors, AI is capable of doing way more than they previously realized.

Why You Must Learn AI?

AI tools will can make your daily tasks and work life easier
Answer the questions that you don't feel like spending hours trying to answer
Make more informed decisions about tools and actions
Not just watch the world change, actively participate in reshaping the future

Tips

AI matches patterns with through mathematical probability. It's not magic
The quality of response depends on the data it was trained on and more importantly, the data that it is given as input
AI is a tool - not a replacement for human thought
Always make sure you verify before making important decisions based on AI

You don't need to be in tech or a coder to use AI efficiently. AI is for everyone!