Artificial Intelligence Explained

Let's first define Artificial intelligence, it is the science and engineering of making intelligent machines(McCarthy, 1955 ). These machines have the ability to mimic reasoning, make decisions, and solve problems that require human understanding. Examples include generative AI like ChatGPT, voice assistants like Siri, and many others.

How a simple artificial intelligence system works.

An AI system uses algorithms to analyze large sets of data by perceiving, interpreting, and learning from the data to reason and make decisions thus being able to mimic human intelligence. that is it becomes able to solve problems, communicate with other AI systems, make predictions, analyze, understand, and communicate human language.

Over the years artificial intelligence systems have been able to excel at performing specific tasks for example virtual assistants like Alexa, and personalized recommendations at Netflix. But with more recent research, Artificial General Intelligence is being born

Artificial General intelligence(AGI)

AGI equals or exceeds average human intelligence, it can solve a wide range of tasks. It is able to reason and adapt to new environments. AGI examples include self-driving cars, generative AI models like ChatGPT,

What AI can

The following are some of the things that AI can do:

Prediction and inference

Predictions can be a simple guess or an informed guess based on features or data like weather forecasts while inference is about understanding the information given to you to make conclusions on what is going on like determining your preferred meal based on data input into your restaurant catalog. Machines learn from data to make predictions and inferences.

Pattern recognition

identify patterns in data to make decisions like clustering, and anomaly detection. Specific patterns or features are extracted from the data and used to make decisions or predictions. for example face recognition.

Optimization

Find the best possible solution for a problem at a minimum cost under constraints, A solution that is most effective. Technologies used include natural language processing and chatbots.

Automation

This involves following a set of rules to perform repetitive tasks. Let's take virtual assistants like Siri as an example. Siri uses algorithms to answer frequently asked questions.

In the next article, we shall discuss the areas and related fields of AI seen below