Skip to Main Content

AI Tools and Resources: What is AI

This subject guide includes information and suggested resources for beginning research on the topic of Generative Artificial Intelligence.

What is AI?

Definition

artificial intelligence (AI)

By

What is artificial intelligence (AI)?

Artificial intelligence is the simulation of human intelligence processes by machines, especially computer systems. Specific applications of AI include expert systems, natural language processing, speech recognition and machine vision.

How does AI work?

As the hype around AI has accelerated, vendors have been scrambling to promote how their products and services use it. Often, what they refer to as AI is simply a component of the technology, such as machine learning. AI requires a foundation of specialized hardware and software for writing and training machine learning algorithms. No single programming language is synonymous with AI, but Python, R, Java, C++ and Julia have features popular with AI developers.

In general, AI systems work by ingesting large amounts of labeled training data, analyzing the data for correlations and patterns, and using these patterns to make predictions about future states. In this way, a chatbot that is fed examples of text can learn to generate lifelike exchanges with people, or an image recognition tool can learn to identify and describe objects in images by reviewing millions of examples. New, rapidly improving generative AI techniques can create realistic text, images, music and other media.

AI programming focuses on cognitive skills that include the following:

  • Learning. This aspect of AI programming focuses on acquiring data and creating rules for how to turn it into actionable information. The rules, which are called algorithms, provide computing devices with step-by-step instructions for how to complete a specific task.
  • Reasoning. This aspect of AI programming focuses on choosing the right algorithm to reach a desired outcome.
  • Self-correction. This aspect of AI programming is designed to continually fine-tune algorithms and ensure they provide the most accurate results possible.
  • Creativity. This aspect of AI uses neural networks, rules-based systems, statistical methods and other AI techniques to generate new images, new text, new music and new ideas.

What are the advantages and disadvantages of artificial intelligence?

Artificial neural networks and deep learning AI technologies are quickly evolving, primarily because AI can process large amounts of data much faster and make predictions more accurately than humanly possible.

While the huge volume of data created on a daily basis would bury a human researcher, AI applications using machine learning can take that data and quickly turn it into actionable information. As of this writing, a primary disadvantage of AI is that it is expensive to process the large amounts of data AI programming requires. As AI techniques are incorporated into more products and services, organizations must also be attuned to AI's potential to create biased and discriminatory systems, intentionally or inadvertently.

Advantages of AI

The following are some advantages of AI.

  • Good at detail-oriented jobs. AI has proven to be as good or better than doctors at diagnosing certain cancers, including breast cancer and melanoma.
  • Reduced time for data-heavy tasks. AI is widely used in data-heavy industries, including banking and securities, pharma and insurance, to reduce the time it takes to analyze big data sets. Financial services, for example, routinely use AI to process loan applications and detect fraud.
  • Saves labor and increases productivity. An example here is the use of warehouse automation, which grew during the pandemic and is expected to increase with the integration of AI and machine learning.
  • Delivers consistent results. The best AI translation tools deliver high levels of consistency, offering even small businesses the ability to reach customers in their native language.
  • Can improve customer satisfaction through personalization. AI can personalize content, messaging, ads, recommendations and websites to individual customers.
  • AI-powered virtual agents are always available. AI programs do not need to sleep or take breaks, providing 24/7 service.

Disadvantages of AI

The following are some disadvantages of AI.

  • Expensive.
  • Requires deep technical expertise.
  • Limited supply of qualified workers to build AI tools.
  • Reflects the biases of its training data, at scale.
  • Lack of ability to generalize from one task to another.
  • Eliminates human jobs, increasing unemployment rates.

For more detailed information, please check the following web reference: https://www.techtarget.com/searchenterpriseai/definition/AI-Artificial-Intelligence

 

Advantages and Disadvantages of Artificial Intelligence

By Nikita Duggal

 

The Dark Side of AI: Unmasking it’s Threats and Navigating the Shadows of Cybersecurity in the Digital Age.