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Those who Engineer AI are tasked with not only creating, but also finding new, innovative ways of assimilating Artificial Intelligence into everyday life – safe to say, they’ve been quite successful in that regard.
Artificial Intelligence has encapsulated us – our waking life is awash in algorithms, yet we remain mostly oblivious to its presence. Shockingly, half of all humans are flat-out incapable of recognizing the presence of an AI, even when it was staring them in the face.
Nevertheless, we live in a world that would crumble without Artificial Intelligence. Yet, invoking Artificial Intelligence in a conversation, would most likely boil down to the unseemly threat of an oncoming android-apocalypse, like in War of The Worlds, or Terminator. Rarely does a discussion over AI ever result in a civil conversation about the potential of self-driving cars, or something mundane like the detection of unusual debit card usage.
Listed below are 6 applications and the stealthy ways professionals Engineer AI, without anybody being the wiser.
Websites
In 2016, Google appointed John Giannandrea, a computer scientist with a rich understanding of machine learning and Artificial Intelligence, and helmed him with what would become a new era for Google and its search engine. They realized the power that AI possessed in recognizing patterns and sorting out queries on a large scale, which greatly outranked humans by a long mile.
Deep Learning has become a norm for most major websites and applications nowadays. Professionals realized they could engineer AI in any manner they seemed fit. Spotify and Youtube for example, recommends music and videos, through analyzing the patterns of previous listeners/viewers, and thus aggregating results as per their ‘combined habits’.
Traffic Lights
Next-gen road safety lights are far from their 20th century brain-dead counterparts, which merely turned on and off at regular intervals. These stops can detect the volume of cars on the road, gauge pedestrian movement and even record and identify patterns to reduce traffic congestion.
Since 2012, Pitt’s burg has implemented these “smart” traffic lights on no less than 50 intersections. It has managed to reduce traffic by 40%. Additionally, average traveling times dropped by 25%, and emissions by 20%. AI Engineers predict that by 2030, all traffic lights will eventually turn “smart” worldwide.
Films & Television
A lot of technical skill goes into making movies. Big-budget blockbusters, like The Avengers or Avatar, end up making a lot of money, mainly because they end up spending lot of money – primarily on flashy VFX and promotion. Even television shows like Game of Thrones and Stranger Things joined the VFX race to upscale their production. The audience is largely in on the ‘movie magic’ though, albeit not completely.
While obvious elements, like monsters and backgrounds are easy tells, viewers fail to realize just how ubiquitous CGI has actually become. Modern CGI heavily relies on Artificial Intelligence to seamlessly wedge the gaps between scenes. Experts can therefore engineer AI to perform even the most mundane tasks – like removing facial hair, as was the case of Henry Cavill in the Justice League live-action movie. Although it seems ridiculous, this is generally seen as a net positive; since it lets technicians focus on more creative aspects, rather than being bogged down by strenuous and dull responsibilities.
Photography Apps
Photo filters have crept into mainstream society in the form of fun, and goofy applications. Majority of these merely add a frame, or props to the image. With the release of Face App in the summer of 2019 however, people were left amazed (and terrified) over the power of its AI.
The App transformed a picture or selfie with the help of tools and algorithms; and to the amazement of many – showed folks-an accurate image of themselves looking much older. Beautification Apps like Face Tune have become influencer staples on Instagram, so to speak. Photo Apps have thus been using Artificial Intelligence to detect and transform images for quite a while now.
Spam mails used to be a huge menace back in the day. Mails nowadays relegate Spam mails to a different folder entirely – and you have AI to thank for it! Email platforms like Gmail have algorithms set in place, which protect the user from suspicious and fraudulent mails. This is done by analyzing examples of malware, and making informed decisions based on pattern recognition.
But this is far from the only implementation of AI in Emailing – nowadays your email service provider lets you auto-respond to mails, as well as assist you in auto-filing subject matter, based on your usage patterns(and a sense of general optimization). Artificial Intelligence is allowing users to write Emails – with as few key strokes as possible!
Manipulating Your Purchases
Living in an AI world involves living in a bubble– where all your needs are being tailored-made, to be presented on a silver platter. This can result in something basic – like Netflix, suggesting you a movie ‘’that you’d like’’. While in some cases, it can even get really uncanny. Take the case of Ms. Ray, a 20-something student – while on the phone with a friend, she spoke about a product in passing.
According to Ms. Ray, only moments later, Facebook and Google started running ads on her phone about it. This is in no way an isolated case. As we mark our footprints on the internet, in the form of emails, website clickthrough’s, and various other preferences – Artificial Intelligence algorithms quickly keep a track on your behavior. This even lets e-commerce websites like Amazon, preemptively suggest you products that you’re likely purchase.
AI Professionals are working towards a future, where Artificial Intelligence remains one-step ahead of humans at every turn. The fact of the matter is that it’s a daunting job to Engineer AI. Besides the needless paranoid stories of horror that come through us once a while, Artificial Intelligence is more often than not, used to aid humans.
It’s going to be a long time before we see a Terminator-style android apocalypse anytime soon (or maybe never for that matter). Nevertheless, it would be a criminal neglect to ignore the good work being done by folks who engineer AI – from the most basic, most mundane uses, to the really noteworthy, complex stuff.