Vinintell SEPTEMBER 2017, ISSUE 33
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VININTELL SEPTEMBER 2017, ISSUE 33 2017 THE YEAR OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE CONTENTS BACKGROUND gence techniques are pervasive and are too numerous to list here. High-profile examples Background .............................................................................................................................3 Flying defibrillators, Whoppercoins buying of AI include autonomous vehicles (such as Introduction ..............................................................................................................................4 hamburgers, drone-based parachutes, your drones and self-driving cars), medical diagno- Defining artificial intelligence ....................................................................................................4 Friday night take-out sushi prepared by a sis, creating art (such as poetry), proving robot and upper-assembling robots that make Drivers of the AI Surge .............................................................................................................6 mathematical theorems, playing games (such Nikes 20 times the pace of human workers ... as Chess or Go), search engines (such as Type and examples of AI Technology .......................................................................................7 virtual sommeliers ... educational robots that Google search), online assistants (such as AI in real life .............................................................................................................................8 teach children how to code ... welcome to the Siri), image recognition in photographs, spam world of this is the world of Artificial Intelli- Policy and strategic pointers ..................................................................................................15 filtering, prediction of judicial decisions and gence (AI or machine learning). This world is Conclusion ............................................................................................................................18 targeting online advertisements. Major pub- characterised by the term “The Fourth Indus- lishers now use artificial intelligence (AI) tech- Endnotes ...............................................................................................................................19 trial Revolution” (after steam power, electricity nology to post stories more effectively and and information technology); an era that will generate higher volumes of traffic. be defined and driven by extreme automation and ubiquitous connectivity. Robots and This edition of VinIntell will broadly explore machine learning will play an increasingly the concept of AI, provide some definitions prominent role in all industries including finan- and then have a high-level view of how it is cial, agriculture and medicine and we will see impacting in various economic sectors most a closer merger of biological intelligence and notably in agriculture. Finally, a number of digital intelligence.1 Modern artificial intelli- strategic pointers are provided. 2 3 INTRODUCTION The potential of artificial intelligence and tfried Leibniz’ extended the concept of the methods and scientific standards. As recently advanced robotics to perform tasks once calculating machine intending to perform as 20 years ago (in 1997), Deep Blue became A blog entry on the World Economic Forum reserved for humans is no longer reserved for operations on concepts rather than numbers. the first computer chess-playing system to (WEF) website earlier in 2017 states that spectacular demonstrations by the likes of However, it really started as a field at Dart- beat a reigning world chess champion, Garry Artificial Intelligence (AI) is now a “hot topic” IBM’s Watson, Rethink Robotics’ Baxter, mouth College. Attendees Allen Newell (CMU), Kasparov.6 in business and government circles. Social DeepMind, or Google’s driverless car. Just Herbert Simon (CMU), John McCarthy (MIT), Today, AI is an umbrella term that encom- robots, including companion and entertain- head to an airport: automated check-in Marvin Minsky (MIT) and Arthur Samuel (IBM) passes everything from robotic process ment robots for homes, are attracting great kiosks now dominate many airlines’ ticketing became the founders and leaders of AI automation to actual robotics and has investment deals. A May 2017 forecast areas. Pilots actively steer aircraft for just research. They produced programs that the become a buzz word in a time when there is stated that revenue generated from the direct three to seven minutes of many flights, with press described as “astonishing”: “computers an increase in the speed, size and variety of and indirect application of AI software would autopilot guiding the rest of the journey. were winning at checkers, solving word prob- data businesses are now collecting. It grow from US$1.4 billion in 2016 to US$59.8 Passport-control processes at some airports lems in algebra, proving logical theorems and includes the terms machine learning and billion by 2025. This forecast represents an can place more emphasis on scanning docu- speaking English.” In the beginning of the deep learning (see figure 1). upgrade of a previous projection for AI mar- ment bar codes than on observing incoming 2000’s, AI began to be used for logistics, data ket growth, which was published in 3Q16, passengers. Claims of AI advances are eve- mining, medical diagnosis and other areas UBS South Africa has a succinct definition of owing to a greater than anticipated pace of rywhere these days, coming even from the showcasing its computational power, greater AI. It says AI can be viewed as being pro- 2 change and development in the AI sector. marketers of fast food and toothbrushes. emphasis on solving specific problems, new grammes and tools that make software more Recent advancements in AI, and specifically Even boasts from solid research teams can ties between AI and other fields and a com- intelligent “in a way an outside observer thinks in machine learning, have contributed to the be difficult to assess. Microsoft first an mitment by researchers to mathematical the output is generated by a human.” AI uses growth of Autonomous Things such as nounced it had matched humans at speech drones, robots and self-driving cars. Besides recognition in October 2016. these tools and functions however, more Let us view some popular definitions of AI. significant is how software is being rede- signed and how systems are built, what can DEFINING ARTIFICIAL be programmed and how users interact. Machines have started to grasp and antici- INTELLIGENCE pate what we want to achieve and soon they AI is really intelligence generated by machines will do it for us. Computing will never be the (as opposed to natural intelligence namely same and things we never imagined to be intelligence generated by humans) or getting possible are now happening. An example: machines to do the things which at the There are now flying defibrillator drones that moment humans do better (including machine comes right to the site of an emergency in a learning and deep learning).4 The term Artificial matter of minutes meaning medical help can Intelligence was coined by John McCarthy, an take a path that’s as short as the crow flies. American computer scientist, in 1956 at The Similarly a drone-based parachute drops Dartmouth Conference where the discipline blood donations and other medical supplies was born while some literature says that AI to Rwanda while a number of Swiss hospitals began in the early 1960’s.5 Still others claim began using drones to transport lab samples some of the earliest AI tools include Ramon Figure 1: Evolution of AI back and forth.3 Llull (c. 1300 CE)’s Calculus ratiocinator, Got- Source: Nvidia, 2017 4 5 self-learning systems through the use of data DRIVERS OF THE AI SURGE Google Drive, Apple iCloud, Netflix, TYPES AND EXAMPLES OF mining, pattern recognition and natural lan- Yahoo Mail and Dropbox).11 A number of factors are driving the stunning AI TECHNOLOGY guage processing (NLP) and emulates human 2. Scalability. Processors (chips) are turned growth in AI and experts argue that should brain processes for simple tasks. In business out more frequently and cheaper than Broadly the types of AI we see today (machine these conditions continue, the types of AI we AI has value in its high scalability (think the ever before. Their ubiquity means chips learning and deep learning) include optical see today will continue to flourish and, possi- Nike robot which makes shoe uppers), its abil- are in everything and in turn computing character recognition, voice recognition, bly, more general AI might actually become a ity to decrease errors amongst others and its capacity is accessible at a fraction of the autonomous vehicles and content delivery reality. But one thing is certain: if everything is ability to perform tasks such as identifying cost of a few years ago all the time from networks e.g. video streaming, software a connected computer device, and all infor- patterns in the data more efficiently than everywhere. downloads, web and mobile content accel- humans, enabling businesses to gain more mation can be known, processed and ana- eration and cloud intelligence. Arend Hintze, 3. Data proliferation is the third factor. The insight out of their data.7 8 Put in another way, lysed intelligently, then the things we would be an assistant professor of integrative biology volumes and types of data available digi- it is about outsourcing cognitive processes to able to program and