Is Artificial "Intelligence" Real?

Artificial -> Yes; Intelligence -> No.

Artificial (/?ɑ?t??f??l/) - made or produced by human beings rather than occurring naturally

Intelligence (/?n?t?l?d?(?)ns/) - The ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills.

The term "Artificial Intelligence" (AI) has been thrown around often recently. Self-driving cars, image creation, music generation, and one close to IT industry code generation; all these examples fall under AI.

Sometimes the AI tools and applications seem magical and out of this world! Every day hundreds of new AI tools, applications, and plugins are getting added. Here are a few that are standing out in the bombarding of the AI market ChatGPT OpenAI Google Midjourney GitHub Microsoft Copilot DALL-E Open Ai

However, as of today, the answer is no to the below questions:

• Is AI truly intelligent in the same way a human is?
• Can AI imagine things itself? e.g. write a unique epic saga by itself
• Can AI do innovation in the field of science, and technology? e.g. design a new type of car engine

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Machine Learning

So, if AI isn't replicating human intelligence, how exactly is AI doing things that it does? The key lies in machine learning, a powerful technique where algorithms learn and improve from data. Imagine a program trained on millions of images – so it can identify objects in new photos with impressive accuracy. This ability to "learn" is what fuels many AI applications.

Apart from machine learning, there are a few more important building blocks for AI like:

• Rule-Based Systems
• Natural Language Processing (NLP)
• Neural Networks
• Computer Vision
• Optimization
• Fuzzy Logic

So, AI can do things that it does because large data sets were used to train them. With these learnings combined with the above mentioned building blocks, AI delivers excellent results.

Consider a case where a new animal species say 'Velocifelis Lumina' is discovered which has not yet been used as learning data for an AI system that generates images with prompts. Will AI be able to generate an appropriate image with the below prompt?

"A joyful 'Velocifelis Lumina' playing with elephants in the exotic forest on a pleasant sunny day."

Let's understand one of the use cases of AI - Code Generation.

How does an AI know how to write code?

The simple answer is that code is just language and large language models like ChatGPT are designed to create sentences emulating language based on its training data.

The longer answer is that AI companies have trained large language models using examples of coding languages; as a result, these AI systems can generate sentences emulating those coding languages.

Now, it's important to understand there's no actual intelligence, no conscious thinking agents inside these systems sitting there writing the code. What's really happening is that generative AI interprets your prompts and response by putting together sentences word for word based on statistically guessing what the next word in the sentence should be.

Since coding languages are far more structured, patterned, logical, and model-based than regular human languages, the chances of the AI successfully putting together a functional code is quite high. That said, because these AI is not actually writing or testing code, but instead putting together sentences that look like code, in many cases, they're just repeating the existing coding patterns found in their training data. As a result, AI tends to repeat old coding patterns and standards. So if you're trying to do something new, the AI will probably not be able to help you.

What Does This Mean for You?

As professionals, we need to embrace AI literacy. Understanding what AI can and can't do will be crucial for navigating the evolving workplace. Here are some ways to get started:

• Explore online courses on AI fundamentals.
• Identify opportunities where AI can complement your skillset.
• Stay curious and ask questions about AI in your industry.

The world of AI is rapidly changing, and the conversation is ongoing. We have to embrace the change and benefit from the best of Human Sentience and Artificial intelligence.

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