When most people hear the term ‘artificial intelligence’, they automatically think of advanced computerized technology with which the ‘average Joe’ has little involvement. However, the reality is that most individuals today are surrounded by artificial intelligence and machine learning in their everyday lives. In other words, regular people interact with AI a lot more frequently than they probably realize.
Here is a brief breakdown of how artificial intelligence infiltrates everyday life.
What is Artificial Intelligence?
Artificial intelligence is a branch of science and technology focused on designing and developing various ‘intelligent’ computer systems. These computer systems are programmed in such a way that they are able to perform specific tasks that usually require human action and thinking. These tasks may be anything from speech recognition to translating two different languages. Some advanced AI systems can even handle decision-making tasks.
The main advantage of AI for businesses and individuals is the fact that it maximizes productivity and, in many ways, makes life easier for humans.
The brains behind the creation of AI and machine learning are usually those who have spent years studying engineering, often specializing in electrical and computer engineering at world-renowned universities, such as Kettering University online.
Social Media
What is one of the first activities that most people enjoy in the morning? Booting up their smartphones and checking their social media accounts, of course. Social media platforms are strongly based on artificial intelligence. For example, AI is utilized to recognize what sort of posts resonate with you and which ones you tend to interact with on a regular basis. It takes note of these trends and uses them to actively decide which posts to serve you first.
Website Chatbots
How many times have you visited a website only to be greeted with a short message in the bottom righthand corner of your screen offering help and guidance as you browse? You are forgiven if you believed that those messages were coming from real people waiting to assist you from the other side of the screen. The truth is that, more often than not, if you were to reply to the message received, you would be interacting with a website chatbot. These chatbots utilize AI to recognize specific words and phrases based on previous questions asked by other visitors to the website.
Chatbots vary in intelligence. While some may be simply programmed to direct you around the website based on the keyword that you’re searching for, others can be programmed to help you schedule an appointment to visit your dentist or get your hair cut!
Digital Assistants
Are you a big fan of Apple’s Siri? Maybe you spend a lot of time interacting with Amazon’s Alexa or Google Now? All these digital assistants are excellent examples of artificial intelligence. What’s interesting about them is that they continue to become more and more advanced with every single user interaction that comes their way – hence the reason why some of these digital assistants can now perform tasks such as:
- Translating from language to language on your travels
- Checking the weather
- Checking your email
- Checking your schedule
- Sending text messages
- Searching the web
- Playing music
- Providing news
- Communicating sports scores
- Ordering products online
Search Engines
Did you know that Google processes an average number of 3.5 billion searches per day? In other words, plenty of people are utilizing the world’s most popular search engine on a regular basis. Google is a massive part of everyone’s everyday life and, yes, it operates predominantly with the help of advanced AI.
Whenever someone inputs a search phrase or keyword into the Google search engine, AI is responsible for scanning the infinite expanse of the internet and supplying them with the most accurate results. Google is also responsible for serving you with ads relevant to you based on your previous search history and the websites that you visited in the recent past.
‘Smart’ Devices
You can be pretty certain that any ‘smart’ device found within the home or business is powered by AI and machine learning. For example, there are several ‘smart’ appliances that you can connect with your phone these days. This enables you to control your appliances remotely, which can prove endlessly convenient.
Another popular device is a ‘smart’ thermostat which actively takes note of the heating/cooling preferences within your household in order to effectively adjust the temperature as required throughout the day and night.
Email Responses
If you use Gmail, you will have noticed that it is possible to include ‘smart’ replies to various different types of email messages without having to physically type anything out yourself. Artificial intelligence is employed here by scanning the content of the email received and creating a relevant autoreply using this information.
Online Banking
Online banking would not be a possibility if it were not for AI and machine learning. It is especially important when it comes to maximizing security regarding all online banking transactions and is often advanced enough to detect and report possible cases of fraud. Basically, everything that you do via your online banking app, whether it’s to pay someone or to check your balance, is powered by AI working behind the scenes.
Entertainment
Netflix boasts around 167 million subscribers globally. This ever-popular streaming provider relies heavily on artificial intelligence to provide users with the world-class entertainment experience that they have become so used to. For instance, artificial intelligence is at work whenever you are served with recommendations relating to content that you have watched in the past.
However, Netflix’s AI is far more complex than that. According to insiders, the recommendation engine takes into consideration an extremely high level of detail, including the specific time of day that you were watching a specific type of content, in order to suggest the most relevant shows and movies based on your tastes. The more you watch, the more ‘in-tune’ the recommendation engine gets with your unique preferences.
As you can see, it’s evident that AI plays a significant role in our day-to-day lives. As technology continues to progress, who knows what other incredible feats AI could master in the coming years and decades? It’s certainly going to be exciting to find out!