Artificial Intelligence - An Easy Beginner's Guide to Master it

A few years ago, if you mentioned the term Artificial Intelligence in a boardroom, there is a good chance that people would think of movies such as Iron Man (Jarvis) or Arnold Schwarzenneger’s Terminator. It was not a matter taken seriously by companies. Today, it is one of the hottest trends in business and industries and it is generally part of all Tech-Conferences.
But do people really understand what is Artificial Intelligence and how it works to deliver a human-like thinking process? This article is a guide for beginners to relate to this subject.

What is Artificial Intelligence?

Artificial Intelligence – or AI for short – is a technology that enables a computer to think or act in a more ‘human’ way. To achieve his goals, It analyses information from data collected from its surroundings and decides its response based on what it learns or program to do. Some of the activities computers with artificial intelligence are designed for, include:

You may have not noticed it but there are examples of AI in your daily life: Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa, Google Translate are some of them.

Most of the time, you find 2 kinds of Artificial Intelligence:

Narrow AI: It is the AI that exists in our world today. Narrow AI is programmed to perform a single task better than a human — whether it’s analyzing weather forecasts, being able to play videogames, or driving a car without a driver. It’s also known as Weak AI.
General AI: It refers to machines that exhibit human intelligence. In other words, General AI can successfully perform any intellectual task that a human being can. It is the type of AI that we see in movies as Iron Man. It is known as Strong AI.

How does Artificial Intelligence work?

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To perform his tasks, AI combines large amounts of data with intelligent algorithms, allowing the computer system not only to learn automatically on its own but also make decisions, predictions and in some cases take actions at superhuman speed, efficiency and accuracy.

There are various units and concepts that form the foundation of how Artificial Intelligence works. They are mainly:

Machine learning is the study of algorithms and statistical models that computer systems use to perform a specific task without using explicit instructions. Instead, the computer system relies on patterns and inferences.
Neural Network: It is a sort of machine learning that is made up of linked units (called neurons) that processes information by sending it between each unit. Such systems “learn” to perform tasks by considering examples, generally without being programmed with task-specific rules.
Deep learning: It is a subfield of machine learning that uses important neural networks, improved training techniques and serious computer algorithms to learn from data that is unstructured or unlabeled.
Cognitive computing: By using AI and cognitive computing, the absolute goal is for a machine to replicate human thought processes in a digitalized model. The computer can reproduce human brain activities with pattern recognition, self-learning algorithms and natural language processing.
Computer Vision: It is a field of computer science that works on enabling computers to see, identify and process images in the same way that human vision does. When machines can process, analyze and understand images, that means that they can capture images or videos in real-time and interpret them.
NLP: Natural language processing (NLP) is the ability of computers to analyze, understand and generate human language, including speech.

Applications of Artificial Intelligence:

Health Care:

AI already has a very important impact in the medical field. It would help radiologists to deliver better analyses from patients’ X-rays and improve at the same time the detection and treatment of cancer at an early stage. Another problem AI solves is that of misdiagnosis which is a regular cause of death in Africa. With Artificial Intelligence, Doctors would better diagnose patients’ disease and provide them with appropriate treatments.

Autonomous Driving:

AI is already used by big companies like Tesla or Uber to provide a better driving experience. It could perform a lot of tasks such as:

Connect to a GPS to detect the fastest path to its destination
Pay attention to different traffic laws (stopping at red lights and stop sign; slowing down in neighborhoods, etc.)
Be aware of its surroundings like knowing how far the next traffic light is.

Banking:

In financial institutions, AI techniques can be used to identify which transactions are likely to be fraudulent, adopt fast and accurate credit scoring, as well as automate manually intense data management tasks.

In summary, The goal of AI is to provide human-like interactions with machines and offer decision support for specific tasks to humans. As Big companies like Amazon, Google or Uber, I do think it is a game-changer and it is time to invest time and effort to learn and incorporate it into businesses. Artificial Intelligence is not a replacement for humans but a tool that we can use to deliver better services and improve our lives.