Looking to the future of AI shows a lot of promise and potential for massive changes. This has inspired plenty of people to start evaluating new career plans to better utilize AI in the future. In the following sections, you’ll learn about 15 applications of artificial intelligence, and a great way to change your career to align better with this future of AI.
Understanding the Basics of Artificial Intelligence
Artificial Intelligence, also called “AI,” has been all over the news, but what exactly is it? Understanding what AI is will help you understand how it can help you in your daily life.
Defining Artificial Intelligence
AI is a machine-based learning method that simulates human intelligence. It’s the ability of a computer program to “think” on its own, learn, draw connections, and streamline tons of processes for you.
A common scenario is a text-based AI program that allows you to type a question and it provides an answer. The AI model will read your question, interpret what you’re trying to ask, and then look through its massive database to answer the question for you.
A simple way to explain AI is substituting the human brain for a computer-based program to do tasks for you. AI can be used with text, visual media, video, music, and much more.
Brief History of AI
The idea of AI has been around for a long time. It was written about as a theory shortly after the first computers hit the market. Formally, AI started in the mid-1900s, with milestones like the Turing Test being created to test whether an AI-based model can think and have emotions.
Today, AI is commercially available for most people. All you need is an internet connection, and you can start using basic AI models for free.
Strong AI vs. Weak AI
Strong AI is also called artificial general intelligence (AGI), and it’s a more complicated system that can truly understand, learn, and apply concepts in ways that a human does. In some cases, the results can be indistinguishable from human intelligence. An example of strong AI is an AI-based calculator that will do math for you.
Weak AI, also called “narrow AI,” is a more simplified AI model. It focuses on performing a very specific task very well. Even though it’s considered “weak,” it still can be incredibly useful and requires a ton of math, science, and programming to make it run correctly. An instance of weak AI is facial recognition in public cameras.
The key difference between the two is how generally applicable both models are. Strong AI can be used in a wide range of functions very well, and weak AI is incredibly limited in its abilities (by design).
Applications of Artificial Intelligence
With a better understanding of Artificial Intelligence as a whole, let’s explore some specific applications of artificial intelligence in today’s world. Some of these are more general, but all of them are applicable to the everyday person.
Healthcare Diagnosis and Treatment
One of the more exciting ways to utilize AI today is through healthcare diagnostics and treatment. With humans, there are a lot of limits. Doctors are expensive, waiting rooms are crowded, hospitals are busy, and people make mistakes.
A spider bite looks a lot like MRSA, and it’s common for doctors to accidentally misdiagnose patients for several reasons.
With AI-based healthcare, uploading a picture and answering the AI’s questions can provide helpful results. The AI model can access billions of pictures and databases to make sure every diagnostic is as accurate as possible.
With AI, you won’t need to go to the hospital to get a diagnostic and treatment plan. You’ll be able to get real advice from the comfort of your home, likely using a phone-based app.
Autonomous Vehicles
Autonomous vehicles are cars that can drive themselves with no input needed from a human at all. You might have seen some examples in the news recently, and there are even experimental autonomous vehicles on the road today in parts of America.
How do these cars drive themselves? Through AI. Artificial Intelligence is acting as the brain for the whole operation. It’s interpreting incoming data from sensors on the car, making decisions in real-time, navigating using the most efficient route, and ensuring the car stays safe during the whole trip. AI decides when the car shifts, when to accelerate, how quickly to go, and when to brake or stop.
Without AI, the autonomous vehicle will stay parked in one spot, unmoving.
Natural Language Processing (NLP)
Natural Language Processing (NLP) is the method of studying human language. NLP-based AI systems can interpret what you’re saying, translate it into another language, analyze what you mean with your words, and recognize the actions you’re trying to say.
Consider asking Siri to make a phone call for you. Siri must understand what you’re asking it to do before it can make the call. In more complicated AI systems, the device will be able to translate your text in real-time, allowing you to communicate outside of your native language.
Virtual Assistants
Speaking of Siri, AI-based virtual assistants can respond to your voice commands to streamline a lot of everyday tasks. You can ask Siri a question, and it will answer you. Everything going on behind the scenes happens in fractions of a second, thanks to AI.
Realistically, Siri is acting like your assistant: it’s listening to you, interpreting what you’re saying, doing a Google search, checking for the validity of the answer, and then presenting the answer to you in seconds.
Fraud Detection
Another interesting artificial intelligence sample is fraud detection. A lot of banking companies are doing this without you realizing it, and it’s keeping you safer. Fraud detection is the practice of looking into your transaction patterns and looking for examples of fraud.
For instance, maybe your card was unexpectedly charged to leave a big tip at a restaurant or buy gift cards in a different state. Using AI, the credit card company can flag these transactions and reach out to you to make sure you made the purchase.
Real-time fraud detection like this can apply to many more users and save companies a ton of time and money. More importantly, it can keep you safer.
Predictive Maintenance
Wherever machines are used, they need to be maintained and serviced. With AI, companies can analyze machine performance through a series of sensors. The AI model will compare the performance to historical trends and established baselines, and then determine when the machine needs to be maintained.
If they notice a spindle not spinning as quickly, then the AI can send an alert to the user and prompt them to consider maintenance in the near future.
These systems can save companies time and money by avoiding unexpected downtime.
Recommendation Systems
A common AI model that a lot of people see daily is recommendation systems. Have you ever wondered how Netflix knows the next best show to suggest? This is through a complicated AI model running in the background.
While Netflix doesn’t say how their recommendation system specifically works, it’s likely looking at the tags associated with TV shows and movies you watch, analyzing how often you watch similar content, seeing what types of shows you stop watching partway through, and comparing that to their database of similar TV shows and movies.
Whenever you finish a show and see ‘You might also enjoy watching…’, understand that an AI-based recommendation system determined this.
Computer Vision
Computer vision uses AI to act like a set of human eyes. With computer vision, a camera system can look at an object, understand what it is and what it’s doing, and report that data back.
A common way is by facial recognition used on cameras or drones. A more complicated demonstration is a computer setup that determines what kind of baseball pitch is thrown, whether it is a strike or ball, and how fast the ball moved.
Financial Trading
In the financial sector, you can find AI-based financial trading systems. These systems analyze current trends in the market and compare them to historical data to make an estimate of how the market will shift in the future.
Since it’s all done with AI, it comes with a larger confidence factor and can move much faster than human traders. This has been a big selling point for many investors and has disrupted the industry.
Smart Home Automation
Anyone with an Amazon Alexa-enabled home already knows how useful AI can be in everyday life. This refers to smart home automation through AI-based systems, with Alexa being the biggest example of this.
You can simply say aloud, ‘Alexa, turn on the bedroom lights and the TV on mute,’ and Alexa will do just that. It uses an AI system to understand your requests and trigger the events.
The best part? Smart home automation can have your coffee cup hot and ready for you in the morning without you lifting a finger.
Precision Agriculture
As one of the largest industries, it’s no surprise that the agricultural business uses AI via precision agriculture. This is the practice of optimizing harvesting schedules based on weather, soil conditions, and crop health.
With AI steering the ship, farmers can increase yield and reduce waste of each harvest, giving them more money in their pockets and stocking up grocery stores.
Robotics
AI and robotics have gone together since their creation. AI acts as the brains while the robotic components act as the arms, legs, and body of the unit. Together, they can replace humans in certain tasks, especially dangerous ones like handling chemicals and toxic spills.
You can find AI-based robotics anywhere from manufacturing assembly lines all the way to the surgery table with AI-controlled surgeons.
Cybersecurity
Just like AI-based fraud detection, AI-based cybersecurity will keep your computer systems safe by looking for patterns and actions indicative of a cyberattack. AI can significantly enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of human cybersecurity experts by complementing their skills and accelerating the analysis process, rather than replacing them entirely.
Having AI-enabled cybersecurity can keep your home and business safer than ever before.
Education
AI can also help in the education space. AI-based learning can be customized and optimized to give the student the best chance of success. It can learn how the student learns, and then tailor every lesson to best suit the student’s needs.
AI in education is the best way to optimize self-paced learning. It can also provide extensive tutoring and question-answering services to the students to make sure they fully understand the subject before moving on.
Environmental Monitoring and Conservation
There are so many risks to the environment, but AI-based environmental monitoring and conservation is a way to reduce some of these risks. It works through numerous sensors scattered around outside, across the globe. The AI model will monitor all these data as a means of predicting and preventing any upcoming ecological threats.
It’s a useful tool in wildlife conservation efforts, looking into patterns of poaching and animal populations to avoid extinction and give early indicators if something is wrong. For instance, this system could find that the population of sheep is falling too quickly and the population of wolves is growing. The system can tell the user this information and even suggest methods to correct the ecological issue.
Preparing for Tomorrow’s Workforce with Today’s Education
Artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming the digital landscape, becoming an integral part of how we interact, work, and innovate. As AI continues to advance, it promises to shape the future in ways we are just beginning to understand.
Johnson & Wales University College of Professional Studies offers career-relevant online undergraduate and graduate degrees that position our graduates for the workforce of the future. If you’re looking for flexibility and convenience, look no further than JWU.
For more information about completing your degree online, complete the Request Info form, call 855-JWU-1881, or email [email protected].