What Is Artificial Intelligence?

Overview of AI

First introduced in the 1950s, Artificial intelligence (AI) refers to a machine’s ability to do tasks that ordinarily need human intelligence. When a machine performs tasks or behaves like humans, we refer to it as artificially intelligent.

Examples

The following are some tasks that an AI-driven machine can perform:

• Visual perception

• Speech recognition

• Language translation

AI as a field encompasses machine learning, deep learning, and several non-learning approaches.

Overview of machine learning

Machine learning is a relatively new field of artificial intelligence. When programmers have a problem to solve, they usually take the data in a compressed form and then develop a set of rules to solve the problem. A machine helps programmers figure out the rules based on the data and projected outcomes. In other words, machine learning differs from traditional programming in that the system knows what to do based on training, rather than programming.

Overview of deep learning

Deep learning is a popular subset of machine learning that obtains a deeper understanding of the data through multiple layers of learning. Tens, if not hundreds, of layers are prevalent in modern deep learning networks. Deep learning has received a lot of hype and for good reason. This is because deep learning has allowed us to make progress in previously difficult areas.

Here are some examples of what we’ve achieved using deep learning:

• Self-driving cars

• Image classification

• Handwriting transcription

All of these technologies use deep learning models. They can recognize speech almost as well as humans and can accurately translate languages.