AI AS EXCITING IN MOVIES AS IN REAL WORLD
WHEN the term artificial intelligence (AI) is mentioned, people imagine robots performing tasks that humans used to do, such as household chores.
In reality, we use AI every day. AI is in smartphones, televisions, laptops, cars and home appliances. Navigation system, translation and face recognition applications are examples of AI.
A simple way to describe AI is that it is any task performed by machines that, if it were to be performed by us, would require intelligence. Hence the term machine learning.
Margaret Rouse provides a description in her blog Whatis.com: “AI (artificial intelligence) is the simulation of human intelligence processes by machines, especially computer systems.
“These processes include learning (the acquisition of information and rules for using the information), reasoning (using the rules to reach approximate or definite conclusions) and selfcorrection.”
Mary-Anne Williams, professor of social robotics at the University of Technology Sydney, said an intelligent computer system could be as simple as a programme that plays chess or as complex as a driverless car.
Movies have been an inspiration for AI with directors, producers and screenwriters creating flicks where robots and androids pit their intelligence against humans.
These movies show advances in computer-processing speed and memory capacity, and that there are programs that can match human flexibility over wider domains or in tasks requiring everyday knowledge.
C-3PO in the Star Wars trilogy is a good example of how AI is put to work.
C-3PO is a companion robot that is programmed for etiquette, customs, translation and protocol, built by Anakin Skywalker.
It is fluent in more than seven million forms of communication and often boasts about its fluency.
C-3PO is interactive and makes all the characters in Star Wars films feel good.
Mention must be made of a humanoid robot companion named Pepper, which is capable of interpreting a smile, a frown, tone of a voice, as well as the lexical fields we use and non-verbal language, such as the angle of our head.
Pepper, designed by Aldebaran Robotics and SoftBank, was released in 2014.
AI has been lurking in science fiction movies for decades before enthralling us in the real world, but researchers may have to do more before we see the full impact of its potential.
Peter Drucker, in his book, Managing for Results, says: “We know only two things about the future: it cannot be known, and it will be different from what exists now and from what we expect.”
We can only hope that AI will lead to a more productive and liveable world.
Faculty of Economics and Muamalat, Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia,
Nilai, Negeri Sembilan