AI Shaping Your Future

What is AI?

The World as we know it is forever and progressively evolving, and thus is steadily becoming more reliant on technology for the functionality of our day to day living. Artificial Intelligence is the development of computer systems able to perform tasks ordinarily requiring human intelligence. With AI, machines can learn and solve problems previously perceived to be inconceivable, but also complete tasks at a much more efficient rate, with enhanced speed, precision and effectiveness of human efforts. Therefore, with AI we are able to plan for the unexpected and execute with excellence.

How is Artificial Intelligence used?

AI can be split into two extensive classifications: Narrow AI and General AI. Familiar current uses of narrow AI are speech recognition, visual perception, decision making and translations between languages. Using these technologies, computers can be taught to accomplish specific tasks by effectively processing large amounts of data, and by analysing the patterns and algorithms, as a simulation of human intelligence and automated reasoning.

President of the future of life institute Max Tegmark has rightfully expressed that “Everything we love about civilisation is a product of intelligence, so amplifying our human intelligence with artificial intelligence has the potential of helping civilisation flourish like never before”. Nonetheless, it may be argued that its responsible implementation is up to us. Artificial General Intelligence is the type of adaptable intelligence found in humans, which is where intellect can be applied to solve any given problem.

The automotive industry is developing self-driving cars powered by AI, with the intention of safer roads, less traffic, and less pollution. Autonomous (self-driving) vehicles have the potential to save time, limit energy consumption, and dramatically reduce the more than 1.25 million deaths that are attributed to road traffic accidents each year.

Similarly, AI is driving changes in two areas in the ways in which we shop online – search and customer service. For example, Google have been using algorithms to show items they think are closest to what searchers are looking for, with Googles mission being responsible AI practices to ‘benefit people and society… from business to healthcare to education.’

Likewise, Apple has spent a great deal of time, money and resources to make its iPhones smarter using artificial intelligence. Apples focus has mainly been ‘on-device’ AI rather than taking a more cloud centric approach, which helps explain the company’s latest goods, whilst sustaining its overt commitment to data privacy.

How has COVID-19 impacted AI?

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is being used as a tool against the viral pandemic that has affected the entire world since the beginning of 2020; hence there has been no negative impact to AI, but rather that the COVID-19 pandemic has emerged as an opportunity for AI-enabled computer systems to fight against the epidemic; with several tech companies working to prevent, mitigate, and contain the virus. For example, Microsoft Corporation’s AI tracker gives a global overview of the pandemic's current statistics on a daily basis.

Where is the market moving?

The global Artificial Intelligence market was previously valued at ï¿¡30 billion in 2019 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 42.2% over the next 5 years. The need for mining and extraction of significant patterns from high-volume information is forever driving the growth of artificial intelligence in big data analytics.

Why have Tech companies done so well?

Ultimately, tech companies are winning the AI race purely because they understand data, with other sectors falling far behind. Many well known companies such as Microsoft, Amazon, Facebook, and Apple are investing in Artificial intelligence to automate process, and better serve customers through improving products and services. This has resulted in many investors alike gaining a greater interest in tech companies; and with the dramatic current and projected growth rates it seems somewhat a very secure option for investment, with the likelihood of these large enterprises closing anytime soon being remote.

However, the UK is officially in recession for the first time in 11 years. Since the economy is facing its biggest downfall since the major economic crisis of 2008, the quantitatively inflated economy will inevitably eventually take a pondering fall. Therefore, the unprecedented situations in conjunction with these fluctuations will cause great uncertainty for banks, meaning an even lower return rate on the already subjacent interest they offer. Thence, it is expected that more and more investors will be looking to venture elsewhere in order to gain greater returns.

Furthermore, AI is rapidly reshaping our futures and the business landscape of the financial industry by successfully overcoming challenges associated with big data analytics, such as incorruptibility, predictability and tendency of data. Its objectivity is also another benefit of an AI-powered mechanism, enabling the implementation of AI to be positively influencing our lives and shaping our futures for the better.