We are increasingly entering a world of artificial intelligence, from robots that vacuum the home alone to doors that open with voice recognition. But what is artificial intelligence and how is it changing our lives and the world? So let’s start at the beginning.

What does AI or artificial intelligence mean? Currently, we can say that it is a technology that seeks to simulate the human learning and decision-making process. Based on stored data, being able to make predictions through machine learning, neural networks and other related techniques. In other words, information processing based on learning from previous experiences occurs. A functioning similar to that of our brain, since we are receiving information and processing it to acquire learning data. We can say that AI is a concept that refers to the realization of humanity’s dream in which machines and robots interact with humans and animals.

Let us now go through some examples of AI that are applied in the daily lives of many people.

– Applications such as Siri, Alexa and Google Assistant, use voice processing to act as a personal assistant;
– Facebook uses image recognition to recommend photo tags;
– Some online sales platforms, such as Amazon, AliExpress among others, make personalized product recommendations using machine learning algorithms;
– Waze or Google Maps predicts the best routes from your location;
– Autopilot cars use AI techniques to avoid traffic jams and collisions with other vehicles;
– Google can automatically populate your searches using artificial intelligence resources and also predict what you want to search with great precision.
– Your phone’s auto-broker is possibly the most used and most visible example, the auto-broker “learns” from your mistakes and corrections. Over time he will already associate words that even if they are misspelled, he will automatically correct for a possible correct correction of the word.

These are just a few more applied examples, but the evolution of AI is getting bigger and bigger, to the point that there are already devices that store data and “communicate” with other devices. An example of this case is, for example, some robots that vacuum alone and already communicate with the robots that wash the floor. In other words, the robot that aspires has the data from the house map, aspires and when finished it will pass the data and information to the robot that washes the floor, which will then start cleaning the floor as soon as the robot finishes vacuuming.

But an even more advanced example and one that fascinated or frightened many people, was the Sophia robot the humanoid robot. While many people were still used to small robots with the appearance of robots rather than humans, the company Hanson Robotic creates a very human-like robot, capable of executing 62 facial expressions and designed to learn, adapt to human behavior and work with human beings. It is practically possible to have a fluent conversation with this robot and still observe the expressions that Sophia does when something she likes or doesn’t like.

But as everything in life has good and bad sides, in AI it is not the other way around, many people think it is something that will facilitate a lot on the other hand, there are other people who think it will get worse. Now let’s talk about some disadvantages and advantages of AI.

We start with the disadvantages, as it is a relatively new technology, AI still raises ethical, social and moral questions regarding its use. Another disadvantage that scares people the most is in relation to how much our privacy is being invaded and where all the stored data is going, such as identifications (voice recognition, face, photos, among others) and for what purpose they will be used.
Another major concern and disadvantage is the possibility that certain job positions will no longer have people to work to have machines with artificial intelligence to do that job. Another disadvantage is that the production and maintenance of these machines has a high financial cost. And lastly, although there is already quite advanced artificial intelligence, they still lack the cognitive skills to develop creativity, as our human brain is capable.

Now we are going to some advantages, in many cases it is a technology that will make it a solution for some or many of our problems and it also reduces some hours of work that we can have, for example, housework (robots that vacuum themselves), although the disadvantage mentioned above regarding machines replacing humans in some jobs, the use of machines in some jobs can be an advantage, relative to having productivity to work for several hours, without the need to take breaks. Another advantage that AI has helped in several discoveries is the fact that machines can go to places that for humans is impossible or difficult to go without putting health at risk, this way machines can go and collect new data.
Still related to jobs and another advantage, machines with AI are able to do repeated jobs with precision and accuracy.

What do you think of Artificial Intelligence? Is it something you like? Or are you still afraid of this technology?

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