Stephen Hawking, even Albert Einstein feared it. Elon Musk begrudges it. Mark Zuckerberg embraces it. There is no shortage of smart people willing to offer their sometimes dire, sometimes optimistic opinions about how humankind's future will be reshaped by computers and software using some sort of artificial intelligence (AI).

If there's one thing upon which the naysayers and yea-sayer come together , it's that AI is already more efficient and effective than what masses know. 

You already use AI every day, whether you realize it or not. Consider the chatty personal assistant in your smart phone. Those scam alerts you receive from credit card companies, or shopping hints from e-commerce sites? They are made possible by software trained to observe your activity over time — in the form of online browsing and bona fide transactions — and to make predictions behind the scenes based on knowledge it gathers about your behavior. 

Set aside, for a moment at least, the unease many people feel about the rapid pace at which AI is advancing. Concerns about disruptions and job losses across human workforces as certain tasks become automated, the unknown question of who will make sure AI is used aptly — and how to account for diverse perspectives based on gender, race and socioeconomic factors — all deserve serious consideration.

The core promise of AI — a concept alive since the 1950s that has become more accessible alongside quantum leaps in low-cost computer processing power — is its capability to become smarter over time, to collect and consider millions or even billions of data points and types, then to act on that information in some active or predictive manner. It uses human guidance as a reference point but usually works on problems in the absence of human intervention.

Machine learning is already widely used for applications that recognize speech and images, so it's easy to envision how it could play a role in cataloging endangered species, such as modeling how planetary ecosystems might react to catastrophic changes in the climate. 

Numerous projects in China deserve attention — 600 cities there have declared an intention to invest in "smart" technology, including the country's eastern capital of Hangzhou. All of this is just scratching the surface of what's possible looking into the near-term and long-term future.

"Computers can, in theory, emulate human intelligence, and exceed it," genius physicist Hawking. "Success in creating effective AI could be the biggest event in the history of our civilization. Or the worst. We just don't know. So we cannot know if we will be infinitely helped by AI, or ignored by it and sidelined, or conceivably destroyed by it."

Source:Green Biz

Picture credit to:Alex Knight