Humanity has been interested in creating artificial intelligence for centuries. But it was only in the 50’s that the first AI was invented. It could do only the most basic things like simple mathematical calculations because of the limitations of computer technology and programming of that time.
Today, we use artificial intelligence every day. Everyone knows about Siri, Cortana, and similar virtual assistants. And it’s not a secret that they’re machines that learn from our behavior and utilize our habits to improve the quality of their services. These virtual assistants can call any of our contacts, find information on the Internet, and even order food for us.
Who knows, maybe someday they will be even able to write an essay for you. But for now, we’ll have to either hire a paper writer or do everything ourselves. And the latter isn’t always that appealing, especially when you have tons of chores, a half-time job, and personal life.
Another well-known instance of AI is Tesla’s autopilot driving system. The mechanism of its work is very complex and requires years of programming and machine learning. Yet, there are still many examples of when you use artificial intelligence and don’t even have a clue about it.
Source: https://unsplash.com/photos/tGBXiHcPKrM
Credit Card Transactions
“I use my credit card every day and have never spotted any AI presence”, you may say. That’s because the machine allows you to do so. It sounds like artificial intelligence is your supervisor who decides whether you have or haven’t permission to use your card. And it is indeed so. Well, almost.
Most banks use complex self-learning software that gathers data from their customers. The information contains such things as the payment’s location, time, business type, and habits. It analyses everything and makes predictions. If the next transaction looks suspicious, the AI may cancel it and even block your card.
Don’t worry, it’s a pretty rare occasion, and usually works properly. Its goal is to prevent money transfers from stolen cards and other fraudulent transactions.
Instant News
When a football team wins a match, an online newspaper needs to write about it immediately. That ensures that their article will be the first, which brings tons of traffic. Yet, that’s a very basic example, so don’t underrate the abilities of AI based on it.
The thing is, nowadays, machines can write whole analysis articles on certain events. Their core programs are huge and very complex. Due to such marvels of computer engineering and coding, artificial intelligence doesn’t repeat itself and uses only relevant words. Most of the time we don’t even realize that the article we’ve just read was written by a computer.
And today, probably every student wants a robot that would do all the homework for them, write essays and take exams. Don’t get too hyped, though. Such AI has a lot of limitations and is able to write only a basic analysis on certain events in a particular subject area.
The good news is, by searching “Write a paper for me on WritePaper”, you’ll be able to easily find someone to do the nerve-racking homework for you when needed. Just know the limits and don’t overuse it.
YouTube
No, it’s not the recommendation algorithm that everyone thought about right now. Of course, it’s an artificial intelligence that does all those recommendations, but it’s very popular and every single user knows about its existence.
Sometimes, people may see titles in their native language on unexpected channels. For example, a title in Russian on a Spanish channel. And the video is in Spanish too. So why was the title in a different language?
That’s because AI translated it, so that users who in its “mind” may find this video interesting, could read the title and become interested enough to click on it. It works along with the recommendation algorithm to provide unpopular (and popular) videos with more views.
In the heart of the whole system lies Google Translator, which has evolved to almost human levels of translation. It’s often surprising how well it can translate obscure phrases and uncommon wording. Not even talking about the ability of this machine to understand human speech in a video and write it down in another language.
Source: https://unsplash.com/photos/zwd435-ewb4
Product Recommendations
Not that many people realize that the ads on most sites aren’t placed there by accident. Well, at least Google Ads aren’t. It’s because Google utilizes artificial intelligence to provide you with the most relevant advertisements and product recommendations.
Yes, it does track such things as:
● search history;
● products searched by a user;
● products bought by a user;
● search habits;
● areas of interest;
● time spent on each page (used to determine what users find the most interesting, and what they skip).
For example, if you’ve looked for guides on how to write essays, paper writing services, and synonyms for words, it will put articles like “How to write a synthesis essay” into the special ad spaces and first search results.
So, next time you see an ad that seems suspiciously relevant, know that it’s there because the machine knows what you want. But don’t worry too much, it’s still automated, and the data won’t ever be seen by humans. Probably.
Autocorrect & Auto Replace
Yes, the thing responsible for replacing work ‘duck’ with the duck emoji is based on AI too. The algorithm of its work is pretty simple. The machine has a predetermined set of words in the beginning. After you’ve typed your first word, it starts spectating and analyzing which words are used more, which ones – less, what writing habits you have, and so on.
And that’s why autocorrecting is used by so many people nowadays. It utilizes a lot of data gathered from many users to form predictions and then narrows them down according to the user’s personal habits and common phrases.
Final Words
As you can see, we’re surrounded by artificial intelligence, even in the simplest of things. And now, you know even more instances of its usage. Let’s just do our best to ensure that machines will always obey Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics.
