What is Artificial Intelligence?
The term “Artificial Intelligence” (AI) is used to describe a system that can perform cognitive activities associated with the human mind, such as “learning” and “problem-solving,” as well as or even better than humans. However, in most cases, what we recognize as AI is actually “automation,” or the process of automating tasks. To better understand AI, it’s important to first differentiate it from automation.
There’s an old joke in computer science that says automation is doing things that we can already do with a computer, whereas AI is doing things we wish we could do with a computer. In other words, once we figure out how to do something with a computer, it moves out of the realm of AI and into the field of automation.
The reason for this joke is that AI doesn’t have a precise definition, and it’s not even a technical term. If you look at Wikipedia, you’ll read that AI is “intelligence exhibited by machines, in contrast to natural intelligence exhibited by animals, including humans.” So, it’s a definition that is as vague and broad as this.
In general, there are two types of AI: strong AI and weak AI.
What we have seen from artificial intelligence so far is weak artificial intelligenceIn contrast, weak artificial intelligence are highly specialized algorithms that are designed to answer specific, useful questions and are limited to the same problem; Like Google and Bing search engine, Netflix movie recommendation algorithm or even Siri and Google Assistant voice assistant. These AI models are very impressive in their level, although their efficiency is limited.
