Application for Artificial Intelligence in 2022
Artificial Intelligence, more commonly known as AI, is a term we are used to seeing everywhere. Tech companies use it on every product launch, we see Meta building the Metaverse on the basis of AI and businessmen like Elon Musk firmly believe AI is the future. But, what actually is Artificial Intelligence, what is the application for Artificial Intelligence? Let’s look into that:
What is Artificial Intelligence?
To put it simply, Artificial Intelligence is our way of combining the ability of a computer to compute large numbers, and a human’s ability of pattern recognition and rational decision making. AI is effectively a computer that can think and learn. Many people believe in the concept of AI because it can do things humans can’t, particularly when it comes to dealing with large quantities of information with several variables. AI also has the ability to learn faster than humans, because unlike humans, the moment one AI program figures out a problem, the solution and process can be copy-pasted to other programs.
Application for Artificial Intelligence in Present Times
In 2022, we haven’t been fully able to access the Sci-fi future with Artificial Intelligence. We don’t have robots on every corner of the street yet, taking over our jobs. In fact, most of the AI we experience is running in the background of our daily tasks. Let’s take a look at some applications for AI in present times:
1. Photos and Videos
In 2022, it seems like smartphone companies can’t stop talking about the quality of photos their phone takes. We’ve got iPhone dominating smartphone video, Pixel dominating photo’s and Samsung pumping out the craziest camera hardware. However, did you know a lot of the “quality” of the photo or video is dependant on AI? The chip in your smartphone processes whatever your lens captures, and tweaks it to put out a better, more finished result. This AI program uses its knowledge of photos, after being trained by being shown hundreds of sample photos, and changes certain parts of the image. This includes reducing the exposure in highlights, increasing the exposure in shadows, not over-processing faces, adding saturation to landscapes, etc. This is why you may have noticed that when capturing a scene with a Samsung phone vs an iPhone, the pictures may both be very high quality, but everything from sharpness to saturation may vary because they are based on two separate AI programs. This applies for video too. Your phone may show it is shooting 60 fps, but what it is actually doing is shooting 120 fps, with each alternate frame being a low exposure frame. This is then fused with the normal exposure frame to create a better output.
AI is used in post-production of photos and videos too. Super resolution in photoshop increases the resolution of the image you have taken, producing better quality and a sharper result, with less haze. Remove.bg is a site, which uses AI to remove the background of your photos by recognising the subject. AI can also be used to remove entire objects out of a picture, seen in photoshop and even in the Google Pixel 6 line-up. In video, AI is used for rotoscoping (taking an object out of a moving video through masking) and can be used to edit full videos into compilations, a feature in both Google and Apple photos. AI can also help you in colour grading for both photo and video.
2. Virtual Assistants and Chatbots
We all love using Siri to search up a fact, or using Google Assistant to make a calendar event. We’ve all used a virtual assistant before. However, you may not have realised the amount of AI used in these assistants. Interpreting speech to text is already a complex job, that requires training the AI to pick up human voices and accents to convert them into text. Even then, when we speak, it’s not always the same thing. The AI needs to be trained to understand variation. For example, I may ask Siri to “set an alarm for 5 minutes” one time, and the next time I may say “wake me up in 5 minutes”. The assistant needs to understand these variations in human speech and know it is the same thing. Other things include having full conversations with these assistants through natural language processing and even using Google Assistant to make phone calls for you.
You may have also seen Chatbots when visiting a website’s customer support. They also use AI to help diagnose your problems. They are backed by a database of the company’s articles and support guides, and are quite effective at diagnosing and sometimes solving your problem in a conversational manner. Of course, they can’t handle all your problems, which is when they understand the situation is too complex for them and simply transfer you to a human representative. This can save the company resources, and you can have the convenience of not waiting to talk to a representative for a simple problem.
3. Application for Artificial Intelligence in Typing
We’re all used to seeing a recommended words list on the top of our phone’s keyboard which predicts the word we’re about to type next, allowing us to save time typing. Well, this is an example of AI too, which has gotten extremely good at analysing common patters, linking them to your pattern and finding right suggestions. This applies to auto-correct and grammar suggestions too. Tools like Grammarly have used this AI to create comprehensive writing tools that actually improve your writing, and even restructuring your sentences. This is also prevalent in Google smart compose in Gmail and smart reply in Google Chat.
4. Predicting the future
One of the best applications for Artificial Intelligence is predicting the future. AI can combine the ability of a computer to process large amounts of data with logical reasoning to runs simulations of what the future might hold. It can predict the impact of an asteroid, the population of the Earth in a few years and revenue of a company in the future keeping multiple factors in mind. AI can find probabilities and run simulations of every possible outcome and will learn to provide the best solution.
5. Application for Artificial Intelligence in Search
Google’s search engine AI helps you find the most relevant answer to your search query using a complex machine learning algorithm. Google’s AI keeps context in mind when you are searching. If you search “Lava” for example, and your browser history indicates you are interested in smartphones, there are chances you will get results related to the phone company rather than actual molten lava. Google also tries harder to correct your spelling. If you search “ed talk” for example, Google will recommend you switch to “Ted talk”, which is usually what you meant, even though Ed is a word. Aside from that, there is a whole world of Google’s AI and bots scanning websites for SEO and ranking them lower or higher. They also distinguish between spam websites and real website through a series of tests and hunting for certain words and their synonyms in the page.
6. Application for Artificial Intelligence in Social Media
Have you ever wondered why you spend hours on social media, when you only intended to click only one post. Or, have you ever wondered why you are tempted to swipe to the next post all the time, losing track of time. Well, AI plays a big part in that. Every social platform; Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook has an AI machine learning algorithm which goes through our profile, looks at our interests and recommends posts that we are most likely to engage with. This takes into account our mood, time of day, previous videos we liked, etc. It’s a great way for these platforms to earn money, and an excellent demonstration of how AI can trap us with its sophisticated ways of analysing data. AI is also used to moderate Social Media, banning certain keywords and flagging content for hate speech. AI can also create a detailed profile about us by inferring certain aspects of our life by looking at our internet activity.
Artificial Intelligence is also used on Social Media for advertising, where the AI uses the data about you to show you the most relevant ads possible, maximising conversions and revenue.
7. Application for Artificial Intelligence in Self-Driving and Autonomous Vehicles
We all know about Tesla, and we all know Elon Musk’s obsession with AI-powered machinery. It’s only fitting that Tesla is the leader in self-driving tech, which is the most futuristic form of AI we have right now. It’s exactly what it sounds like, the car driving itself instead of you driving the car. The AI is trained to detect objects in real time, counter traffic, drive in the best way possible, have reaction times faster than humans and have many security benefits. Imagine if someone faints in a car. In a normal scenario, the car will crash, killing the driver and pedestrians. But, in the case of a self-driving car, the autonomous vehicle will move on and may even detect you are unconscious and call the Ambulance for you. This may also mean that traffic will reduce due to less accidents and more capable drivers on the street. Illegal driving practices will also be reduced and you will be able to drive home in your car even when you are drunk.
8. Object recognition (Google lens, image to text and traffic cameras)
Humans can easily recognise objects in their surroundings, despite their subtle variations. Thanks to AI, computers have unlocked this ability too. Training an AI to recognise all objects has seen great success, and an AI can pull up details about the object from the web too. Take Google Lens for example. Point it at an object, and you can find out anything about it on Google. Apple Live Text is also another feature which lets you select handwritten text from images and use it as regular computer text. This AI is trained to recognise all handwritings and fonts, and is extremely accurate. Traffic camera’s in your city use AI object detection too, since they can recognise your license number and fine you without a police officer having to pull you over.
9. Robots
Alright, even though we haven’t reached the full sci-fi, humanoid robots walking around everywhere future, we still have robots around us. AI vaccum cleaners are robots, which use AI to move around a room and clean in the most efficient way possible. The best ones can sense surroundings, auto-charge, and clean better than humans can. At the very cutting edge of technology, Tesla revealed the Tesla bot which can eliminate boring, repetitive and dangerous tasks for humans. Spot is a robot dog and is one of the most advanced robots from Boston Dynamics. Some Japanese hotels have also started replacing waiter with robots, which take your order and walk around delivering food.
10. Maps
We all have used Google Maps to avoid traffic and arrive at our location on time. Behind that simple looking map, there is a complex AI making millions of calculations to find the route that will take the shortest time, often requiring it to predict future traffic. The AI also takes your driving habits into account, warns you before a turn is coming and uses smart functionality to re-route when you take a wrong turn. Sometimes, a specific location is not available, the Maps app predicts the closest location and leads you to it. Besides Google Maps, many other applications exist including Apple Maps, Waze, MapQuest, etc.
11. Online Banking
AI can greatly improve security and efficiency of online banking. It can help process large amounts of data and can also detect frauds based on a pattern. It can also detect fake documents and details better than humans. The bank AI can advice certain financial decisions like investments and for the first time, has allowed the process of taking a loan to be done completely online. The AI also helps in calculating credit score more accurately than humans, specially because the AI can analyse many documents from the past and run complex algorithms that can be based on other patterns.
12. Security and Biometric Authentication
Artificial Intelligence, with its ability to recognise patterns easily, is great for detecting potential security threats. In secure facilities, cameras can monitor people’s activity and decide if someone is being suspicious, which then can be reported by the AI to a security guard. Cameras can also be fed with an AI that recognises the faces of wanted criminals, which can help in tracking them. AI can also be a better judge than humans, due to its ability to find patterns. Other measure for security include a gun-wielding robot by Samsung, which also uses AI.
Biometric authentication like Face-ID and Touch-ID also uses AI to identify you using stored data and recognise you even if there’s a slight appearance change.
13. AI Creators and Creative Tools
The job of a social media influencer is to post great content at the right time. AI nails that, and with its new found ability to mimic human appearances and behaviours, any “robot” influencers have popped up. These accounts are managed entirely by AI, and they have garnered large followings of millions. Many people still tend to think that they are real people, which just goes to show how sophisticated AI has become.
Many great marketing and SEO tools like Semrush use AI to find new insights for your website, and help you improve things like SEO (for ranking a site on Google), social campaigns, build relevant links, etc. The WordPress SEO plugin Yoast SEO uses AI to analyse your content to help optimise it for ranking on Google. It also identifies how easy your content is to read, and recommends fixes in certain areas.
14. Application for Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare
The entire training of becoming a doctor effectively boils down to being able to recognise patterns to diagnose diseases and AI is naturally good at diagnosing diseases due to its ability to be able to recognise patterns easily. AI also helps us organise medical data, and be able to group them basis similarities and draw conclusions based on certain patterns. Robots are also much more precise compared to humans. This is specially helpful when performing surgery on extremely sensitive areas of the body. AI can operate a person with pin-point precision, thus the chances of error are much less with AI operations. In fact, Artificial Intelligence is already being used to diagnose and treat cancer!
15. AI for Small Businesses
AI is extremely useful for small businesses, which cannot afford to hire at a large scale, so need to be as efficient as possible. AI helps in automating customer support, increasing conversions through automated e-mails, data analytics, spotting trends, stream-lining HR, customer service and giving customers demo’s of products. AI is particularly important for small businesses since they don’t have resources to get these tasks complete through brute force of hiring more employees.
Well, the Application for Artificial Intelligence has come a long way. We’re still yet to see the futuristic cities where robots replace all of our jobs and AI is able to solve all world problems, but we are gradually moving towards that future. Japan, for now, is the leader in applying AI concepts into its cities and public places. AI is harmful too, but with the right control, concepts like the Metaverse are our future. However, as of 2022, these were the most advanced applications of artificial intelligence.
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