Reshaping the world by harnessing power of data
THE FOURTH Industrial Revolution has over the past few years become a global race based on automated “smart” machines that can perform complex tasks with little or no human intervention.
Probably the most important technology that is driving the revolution is artificial intelligence (or machine intelligence) embedded in numerous other technologies.
Artificial intelligence (AI) increasingly forms part of our personal and professional lives and is ubiquitous – from self-managing machines, self-driving cars and drones to software that invest, conclude contracts, translate and discover new drugs.
Doing so, AI is reshaping our world by fully harnessing the power of data.
This is why it and its specific technologies like natural language processing, machine learning and entity extraction are so important to the Fourth Industrial Revolution.
While the first three industrial eras focused on making human workers more efficient by automating tasks, the fourth era is focusing more on freeing humans from manual labour by gathering, analysing and acting on very large amounts of data.
The growing amount of data (often called “big data”) is becoming as valuable today as precious metals and oil were in the previous industrial eras.
Artificial intelligence has made remarkable progress in its development over the last number of years and swiftly pervaded the most important spheres of our lives, such as manufacturing, communication, marketing, healthcare, media, transportation, science, business, finance, education and the military.
A few years ago, it was unimaginable that we could talk with our computers like with a friend, but today machines can converse almost as if they are real human beings.
AI is not only making workers smarter, but is more and more taking on the decision-making and implementation role of humans.
Earlier this year, the Future of Humanity Institute at Oxford University published a significant study that claimed AI would surpass human beings in many mundane activities in the coming years, such as driving a vehicle and translating languages.
They predict that by 2049, AIe will produce a best-selling book, and by 2053 will be more effective and accurate than a human surgeon in performing surgery.
There is a high chance that AI will be outclassing humans in all tasks in 45 years, and will be automating all human jobs in 120 years.
In the field of law, AI is significantly cutting the time and cost of legal work, especially in merger and acquisition contract analysis, as well as contract remediation to comply with regulatory changes.
Legal professionals also increasingly rely on digital assistants powered by AI to scan case law. These virtual assistants have the ability to become smarter due to machine learning, thus freeing legal professionals to focus on higher value-added legal services to clients.
Many AI-powered services like sentiment analysis, social media tracking, and media intelligence exist to support marketers.
Marketers are increasingly embracing AI and machine learning as enabling technologies that can deliver the true personalisation customers desire.
Machine learning, deep learning, and AI are for instance being used in the famous “super billboards” in London’s Piccadilly Circus that use hidden cameras to gather real-time data on pedestrian and vehicle traffic (including the make and model of cars) to deliver targeted advertisements.
Self-driving cars that are only guided by AI technologies and automatic learning are a hot topic of discussion.
Tesla was one of the very first automotive brands to launch a self-driving vehicle making decisions based on its programming.
Many other car manufacturers and even Google followed suit with their own models of driverless cars. But that is not all.
The well-known taxi company Uber already made the first delivery of 50 000 beers with a self-driving truck.
Rio Tinto, a mining company, has improved productivity by 10% by using driverless trucks at its mines in Australia.
Unlike humans who mostly process information sequentially, AI can act on information from multiple sources simultaneously.
The AI system in these cars can thus make real-time route changes based on multiple streams of data regarding changing road conditions, weather or other considerations.
The use of chatbots is a phenomenon that is becoming popular with regard to customer support.
A chatbot is an AI computer program which conducts a conversation via auditory or textual methods.
Facebook has recently started using machine learning to teach its chatbots to converse and negotiate with each other.
The Facebook bots were designed to talk to each other to better learn negotiation strategies and in the meantime created their own non-human language for negotiation.
Unlike some people believe, AI is not only limited to powerful supercomputers.
Vast applications running deep neural networks are also becoming prevalent on smartphones and wearable devices and equipment.
Increases in computing power have led to the miniaturisation of AIdevices.
A smartphone today can easily recognise photographs, identify songs, translate voice to text and even translate languages. Fourie is the deputy vice-chancellor for knowledge and information technology at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology.