Technology has come a long way since developers created the first computer algorithm. You may have once dreamed of the day your car could drive itself or robots could accurately diagnose diseases, but those ideas are starting to become a reality. Artificial intelligence (AI) is giving humans more ways to stay safe, healthy and happy than ever before.
These advances are still relatively new, and different ways of using AI are still coming about. Living in the age of technology is about to get a lot more exciting. Here are five current developments in AI you may be seeing around you.
1. Translating
As you well know, not everyone on the planet speaks the same language. Many people try to cram in a few sentences of Italian or Portuguese before they travel so they can read menus or ask where the bathroom is. However, artificial intelligence could make this process easier.
Google began talking about the Google Lens in 2017, but its current place in cellphones has been incredibly beneficial for those learning a language. Holding your device up to something written in a foreign language allows the AI in the camera to translate it without needing to switch to another app. The company also has a real-time translation feature so you can still communicate with another person while artificial intelligence does the heavy lifting.
Think of the times you’ve seen a social media post in a different language, hit the Translate button and got a block of text that barely explained what the poster meant. Facebook’s parent company Meta is hoping to change that with its M2M-100 model, which it trained with millions of sentence structures to create more precise translations.
2. Helping the Environment
With the high rates of invasive species, poaching and climate change, the Earth could use more help than humans can offer. Luckily, artificial intelligence is giving scientists and conservationists an upper hand in this fight.
Many research institutes are creating AI models to scan for and locate invasive species harming local ecosystems. Some even add drones to the mix so they can take hundreds of large images at once and have the algorithm analyze them.
One algorithm called PAWS — or Protection Assistant for Wildlife Security — has been helping conservationists in Uganda and Cambodia stop poachers from hunting endangered species. PAWS is the creation of Harvard student Lily Xu and professor Milind Tambe. It aims to find where poachers might place traps and tell park rangers where they should make their rounds.
Artificial intelligence could also help scientists test different ways to help the planet. A digital twin of the Earth shows how different scenarios will affect it. Creating a model like this could help researchers discover the most effective steps to fight global warming.
3. Assisting Health Care Providers
Physicians have much to do in high-stress positions, as the COVID-19 pandemic showed. They are responsible for making quick decisions that often need to be lifesaving. Instead of solely relying on quick thinking and their own best judgment, they could start using AI to help make choices.
Artificial intelligence is helping doctors make diagnoses, research medications and train new staff with simulations. Could you imagine technology being able to tell you if you’re at an elevated risk of a health episode? As wearable technology becomes more advanced, it could warn you when you’re in danger of cancer or a heart attack.
Additionally, AI models can help speed up the paperwork process in health care. This is a less hands-on development, but it does allow physicians to focus more of their time on patients instead of menial jobs. Dedicating technology to these low-skill tasks can help all hospital and office staff do more intelligent work.
4. Driving Cars
Self-driving cars are no longer something you’d only see in the movies. Many companies are still working on rolling these vehicles out, but it could be just a matter of years before automated vehicles are the new normal.
This technology works the same way you would drive a car — by making judgments based on what it sees. The artificial intelligence in self-driving vehicles doesn’t technically have eyes, but they do rely on image recognition to “view” roads, stop signs and potential obstacles.
Current AI-powered cars operate at a lower level of automation. They have sensors to detect their surroundings and make decisions — like speeding up past a slower vehicle — but the driver still needs to be ready to take control. Most self-driving cars now are Level 2 or 3 on the autonomous driving scale.
However, developments are heading toward Level 4. This means you won’t really have to pay attention to what the car is doing, but you might want to just in case. The ultimate goal is Level 5, where passengers could sleep or watch a movie during their drive and have the AI do all the decision-making.
5. Creating Entertainment
It may sound a bit odd, but mixing artificial intelligence and art is a fascinating merge of technology and creativity. It could help make the next best video game, become an artist or even achieve celebrity status.
Right now, game developers use AI to give a bit more life to non-playable characters (NPCs). The model controls how the NPCs act based on a few prescripted choices and decides between them based on a situation. However, major studios are now looking at ways to get the NPCs to react in real-time to your decisions. They could even begin to learn your behaviors and go entirely unscripted, choosing how to respond on their own.
DALL-E is one art bot that’s been going viral on social media. All you need to do is give it an idea and it can generate images for you. Some of the art can look quite scary — it hasn’t quite grasped how to make faces yet — but it’s still an impressive algorithm. In the future, perhaps there will be artists who train AI based on their style.
One of the most interesting developments has been AI influencers. There are several fully automated social media personalities, some of which have thousands of followers. Many brands have found they are excellent marketing opportunities — Lil Miquela has worked with famous brands like Vogue and UGGs. You might not see them replace humans as celebrities, but they could become musicians or actors as the algorithms develop.
