Artificial intelligence is a hot topic these days. You keep hearing reports about this or that company using it in its daily operation. Then Elon Musk comes around to say how horrible it is.
In fact, many people misunderstand the very concept of AI and neural networks. They think of it in terms of the Sophia robot or even Skynet. However, that ’s not the case, at least not today.
Neural networks mostly focus on a single task. It’s like the rat brain that flew a jet. Scientists put a couple of thousands of rat neurons in a dish full of nutritious liquid and taught them to navigate an aircraft in a simulated environment.
Though this organic neural network could fly jets perfectly, it could not do anything else. This is what AI does if properly trained.
If you have the time and proper machine learning procedures, you can train a neural network to do a lot of things. But what are those things?
To answer that question, we should take a look at how AI is being used today, and what novel uses can be found for it in the future.
2 How Netflix Uses AI
You probably know that Netflix uses some algorithms to improve their website’s user experience. They trained a neural network to do that, Justin Basilico says at NVidia podcast.
The best part is that it learns to do a better job as it goes. The more recommendations it gives, the better it is at giving recommendation
Every series that you watch on Netflix is taken into account. Your Netflix feed will look in such a way as to make you want to click on any of the recommended titles.
The AI goes even beyond simple things like this. You will see a different series poster based on your preferences.
These artworks represent different genres, such as horror, mystery, detective drama, love story, and teenage adventure story. These are all combined in the Stranger Things, but the AI shows you the poster you’re going to love best.
3 How Facebook Uses AI
You must have noticed that your Facebook feed doesn’t show every post of the group you’re following. That’s because they employ a neural network to customize the feed for you.
You’re only shown what you’re likely to enjoy seeing. Here you can see one of the drawbacks of neural networks. They don’t work perfectly all the time, especially when it comes to such hard tasks.
This results in you not seeing the updates you want to see because the algorithm didn’t receive enough data from you.
4 How Google Uses AI
The biggest search engine uses AI mainly for one thing – searching. The big problem here is that showing the queries for the right keywords doesn’t always help. This is why Google is focusing on search intent. Neural networks help the company figure out just that.
However, Google has odd uses for AI as well. One of the many projects the company participates in is using visual detection to fight illegal fishing. It also helps spot places with increased sun activity to figure out the best place to put a solar plant in California.
5 How Narrative Science Uses AI
This company is not widely known, but its impact is potentially huge. It works with language generation. The service they sell is the AI transferring a vast amount of data into a report.
This report is written – or, better yet, generated – in a simple to understand and coherent language. It’s done by a machine, however.
While this business idea is a great leap forward in terms of understanding Big Data, it opens up an even bigger opportunity. Improved language generation means you can do all sorts of things with AI. For instance, you can create chatbots that work better than online consultants, and get your essays written based on the essay structure and topic.
2 How the Blue River Technology Uses AI
You can train a neural network to do almost anything. The Blue River Technology team took this to a place no one was expecting.
This company uses AI in an unorthodox field – agriculture. Their neural network analyzes input from thousands of sensors to spot the plant that needs attention. Then it deploys a fertilizer or a pesticide locally on the plant that needs it.
6 What are Other Potential Uses of AI
Now you know that AI is already used for fun tasks like finding the best series to binge watch, for grand tasks like saving fish in the ocean, and for boring but necessary tasks like finding a sick plant.
What else does this technology have to offer us?
According to this research from IIT Dehli, AI can be used for a wide range of predictions. Neural networks can predict the future with some degree of certainty if they have access to historical data.
The effect of this on financial markets is hard to underestimate. It can change the game significantly in favor of the companies that trade using a superior AI.
Self-driving vehicles is another field in which AI can make a major difference. In fact, dozens of companies are researching this right now. When either of them comes up with a solid self-driving solution, millions of driving jobs may become obsolete.
Lastly, just as AI can be taught to single out a specific type of sickness in a plant, it can single out a specific type of behavior in a person. For instance, your AI-powered surveillance camera can see that the guy who walked into the store is going to rob it and will call the police.
The possibilities of AI are virtually endless. Only time will tell what other uses we will find for it.
