Artificial Intelligence in a nutshell

The term artificial intelligence (AI) is known to everyone because it is used in every corner of our digital lives. From the registration portal to the 'restaurant finding' it has its reach.

It would not be wrong if we say our whole life has been changed with AI. People talk about AI in terms of its applications, wiki pages have lots of data in it, which can’t sometime be read in a single go.

In this blog, a complete analysis of artificial intelligence has been carried out, so that the reader has complete information about the topic in a simple manner.

What is artificial intelligence (AI)?

It is a process by which a computing platform gains some decision-making capabilities without programming it beforehand. Every computing device PC, laptop, smartphones, smartwatch, etc. are programmed by efficient engineers before they perform any sort of task.

They cannot think & decide the outcome that has been given to it. They were called ‘dumb machine’ one. But now, the scenario has been changed. Some AI rule has changed the way how machines work.

artificial intelligence definition can be given as a branch of engineering that deals with some methods that make a computing platform or a machine to be able to take some decision for a given scenario without explicitly programming them.

Where artificial intelligence is used?

Literally everywhere. It is hard to tell where AI is not used nowadays. From home to office, the road to space, in every corner of society. But some special mentions have to be made to motivate people to learn it.

For example, let’s start with google. Google’s products (there are a lot of them) especially, the Advertisement publishing system, google assistance, translator, etc. heavily use AI. Other tech companies like Amazon, Microsoft, etc. also use for user recommendations in e-commerce websites.

There are so many potential applications of AI in healthcare, companies all over the world are trying to diagnose patients with the help of AI systems. The systems only take a few samples from patience in the form of heartbeat, blood pressure, retinal scan, etc. and after calculation, they can detect certain types of disease with remarkable accuracy. Recently, Nuralink company is doing similar works, details can be found here.

In agriculture, people are trying to predict the growth of crops by analyzing soil, humidity & climate data. Also, for crop patrolling some AI operated drones are used in precision farming technology.

AI-powered quadcopter for crop patrolling 

In banking sectors, for customer services, an AI-powered chat-box is used. Such an example can be seen in the HDFC banking website. There they created ‘EVA, India's first and largest Artificial Intelligence (AI) powered banking chatbot’.

In the scientific environment, AI is used to easily extract data from several complex experiments. For example, the first black hole image was taken a year ago by using some AI algorithms.

There is much more, and If more examples are added the article will soon turn into a book on just artificial intelligence applications.

How artificial intelligence works?

As it was mentioned earlier that artificial intelligence is some methods that enable computing devices to think. It sorts of an umbrella under which a number of technologies work to achieve the functionality.

The most important technologies include Machine Learning (ML), Neural Network. These are the two fundamental concepts that are applied to achieve artificial Intelligence.

Machine learning is a collection of specialized algorithms, by which a computing device is ‘trained’ by using a vast amount of past experiences. For example, an image detection tool first trained by a very large number of rose pictures before it can detect a given picture of a rose.

On the other hand, Neural networks try to mimic the functionality of ‘neuron’ which the functional basis of our nervous system. For that researchers have created several models to copy the functionality of a neuron.

An engineer takes the model and creates a network of neurons similar to the human brain (but nowhere close to the actual brain under any cases) and by using special algorithms it optimizes the network so that it can provide a computing platform some sort of thinking ability.

Artificial Neural Network, mimicking the human brain structure

Can artificial intelligence be dangerous?

If you are a sci-fi fan, yes it can be. It might come to your dreams in the form of a cyborg and may ruin your night’s sleep. Apart from that, it not going to do any harm. AI has made our life so easy that most of the tasks can now be done by using voice commands sitting at our home.

In previous cases, we have seen its applications which indicates that artificial intelligence is a blessing. But there are few areas where careless use of AI may be harmful. Many AI tools are available which can mimic any person’s voice, some tools can track our daily activity.

Another big issue with AI-enabled society is that it is taking away the jobs of a few production lines, as AI-powered robotic systems are introduced, laborers started losing their jobs.

But again, it is a relative comparison, as building and maintaining AI systems skilled workers, technicians & engineers are required. Implicitly AI has created numerous jobs, in the next section AI job scenario has been considered.

Are artificial intelligence jobs in demand?

Yes, it is! Every country has adopted artificial intelligence to strengthen its infrastructure and services. To built & maintain an AI platform, skilled developers and engineers are required. Which created many job opportunities.

According to statistics, the global AI market revenue is forecast to increase from around five billion U.S. dollars in 2015 to a little over 125 billion in 2025. Also, according to Forbes, ‘Marketing and Sales prioritize AI and machine learning higher than any other department in enterprises today’.

So, it very clear that the artificial intelligence market is a booming market and is the future of science & businesses. Typically, an AI-powered organization required the following working professionals,

1. AI developer | 2. Data scientist | 3. Big data & ML engineer | 4. Deep Learning Engineer NLP/Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning

Near about every organization has started adopting AI. In job portals like Glassdoor, ineed more than 40% of offered jobs in the field of artificial intelligence & machine learning.

What is the Skill-set required to work in AI?

To work as an AI personal, there some concepts are pretty much essential. Learning AI is completely based on the fundamental concepts of linear algebra and Statistics, so concepts in these two fields are a must.

Apart from that, one should have a sound knowledge of how programming works? Or, in simple words, one should know how to program a computer. In this case one has to learn a programming language; it is an added advantage if python/R/java/c++ is known to the candidate.  

Also, good understanding of the following topics is required:

1. Data structure | 2. Machines learning algorithms | 3. Neural network concept., etc.

Artificial intelligence course:

In every almost every good university, artificial intelligence is taught in their academic curriculum for engineering courses. As it was mentioned, alone AI algorithms can not be sufficient for learning AI.

As mentioned, linear Algebra, programming language, data structure is also equally needed. In University courses all these topics are distributed in several semesters. There are few online university courses in AI & ML which are listed below:

1. Mathematics for Machine Learning: Linear Algebra, by David Dye, source: here
2. Linear Algebra by Khan Academy, source: here
3. Data Structures and Algorithms Training, source: here
4. Introduction to python the programming language, source: here
5. Machine Learning with Python: A Practical Introduction, source: here
6. Neural Networks and Deep Learning, by Andrew Ng, source: here

Commonly asked questions about artificial intelligence:

1. Who invented artificial intelligence? Ans: John McCarthy, computer scientist
2. What are artificial intelligence movies out there? Ans: A Space Odyssey (2001), Iron Man series, Avengers: Age of Ultron, RoboCop (1987), Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (2005), A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001), Her (2013), Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977), etc.
3. How to differentiate artificial intelligence vs machine learning? Ans: Machine learning algorithms enable machines to acquire artificial intelligence
4. What is the artificial intelligence salary in job market? Ans: ₹1,523,793 /annum, source: here
5. Will artificial intelligence surpass human intelligence? Ans: Never, a bucket can’t hold water more than its volume
6. Can artificial intelligence be creative? Ans: Yes, AI can compose music for you, source: here

Conclusion: 

In this article, we have seen several aspects of artificial intelligence, for example, what is AI, how AI is achieved, what are the technology exists, applications of AI, Artificial intelligence course, artificial intelligence job market.

All this mare an introduction to these fields, and requires few months of training & practice making it perfect for real-life applications. Lastly, we tried to answer some frequently asked questions.

The most interesting question to me was regarding ‘artificial intelligence’, be sure to watch movies and let us know which movie is the best?