What is Artificial Intelligence: Everything You Need To Know About AI

Throughout history, the possibility of creating artificial systems capable of thinking and acting as human beings has been speculated. It was a matter of time before an idea as attractive as Artificial Intelligence was becoming relevant in this era in which computing and digitisation are growing exponentially. 

Artificial Intelligence is the simulation of human intelligence by machines.

In other words, it is the discipline that tries to create systems capable of learning and reasoning as a human being, learn from experience, find out how to solve problems under given conditions, contrast information and carry out logical tasks.

The fact that a system has humanoid hardware and physically acts as such is a field that belongs to robotics, and is far from the concept of Artificial Intelligence, which focuses on emulating the way of thinking and reasoning of humans.

It should be noted that, if a system could learn and think like a human, it would have considerable advantages over it thanks to its speed and calculation capacity.

Artificial Intelligence is not a new concept at all.

To give an example, in the 17th century the philosopher Descartes already theorised about the possibility of intelligent automata.

Of course, it was not until the middle of the 20th century when the subject began to take on relevance.

One of the first formal challenges in this field was proposed by Alan Turingen 1950, which consisted of the following test: "A system is smart enough if it manages to pass itself off as human when asked by a judge." Curiously, this test is still a great challenge today.

Years later, the renowned computer scientist John McCarthy coined the term "Artificial Intelligence" at the famous Darthmouth Conference in 1956. However, what seemed like the rise of a branch of technological research ended in speculation and isolated projects for decades, among other reasons.  because it turned out to be a field in which nobody dared to invest money seriously.

Despite this, important advances were made, such as ELIZA, the first chatbot that implemented natural language (NLP) in 1966;  the BKG 9.8 program that won world backgammon champion in 1979, the first autonomous vehicles to travel significant distances in Paris in 1994, or the AI Deep Blue created by IBM, which beat the chess champion Gary Kaspàrov in 1997.

With the entrance of the new century and the remarkable technological evolution, AI has become one of the unstoppable trends and the milestones in this field are beginning to be very numerous, from expert systems capable of defeating a human in any intellectual activity to virtual assistants  able to organise ourselves day by day.

Artificial Intelligence is found in every corner of the modern world, yes, we do not always find it in the form of luxurious virtual assistants capable of recognizing our voice.

Let's see some examples, from the simplest to the most complex:

From smart thermostats to vacuum cleaners that walk through every corner of our house.

Home automation is one of the "simple" fields of Artificial Intelligence that users have been able to enjoy for many years.

It is not one of the most striking AIs, but companies like Google or Microsoft apply a multitude of constantly evolving algorithms with the aim of detecting fraudulent and SPAM-type emails.

AI systems mainly powered by search engines and social networks, are those that analyze all the information that the user has, to show them ads with which they will probably interact.

They are usually highly trained systems in a specific intellectual activity, based on the knowledge of experts in the field. A classic example is that of systems that play chess.

Systems that make an interesting use of NLP (Natural Language Processing) and improve with each experience;  they allow coherent two-way communication with human beings, whether oral or written.

Perhaps one of the most obvious, and that is why it is often forgotten, but it has always been one of the main sources of AI improvement, in that eternal quest to get "the machine" to act consistently and realistically.  in a game, be it an enemy soldier or a racing car.

Autonomous Vehicles

Many companies, and not just automobile companies, have jumped on the bandwagon (never better said) of the intelligent automotive industry, developing systems that process huge amounts of data in real time to determine the correct trajectory of the vehicle, accident prevention, etc.  .

It is the closest thing to a movie AI that we can interact with today. It recognizes our voice, adapts to the way we ask for things, and is able to recommend entertainment according to our tastes.  One of the strengths of these technologies is that they have an immense number of users who constantly feed them and help reinforce their learning algorithms.