What is Artificial Intelligence?

Artificial intelligence (AI) is the ability of a digital computer, or computer-controlled robot, to perform tasks commonly associated with intelligent beings. The term is frequently applied to the project of developing systems endowed with the intellectual processes characteristic of humans, such as the ability to reason, discover meaning, generalize, or learn from past experience. – https://www.britannica.com/technology/artificial-intelligence

Where does the initial data come from?

One thing that AI cannot do, is to create on it’s own. It must learn from something. This means all AI programs, whether they be text based, image based, or something else, need to be fed a set of initial data.

This is one of the ethical concerns about AI, in that, what data are we feeding it, to allow it to learn? If you were a student under one of the art masters, you paid to learn under them either in a monetary format, or via working for them as an apprentice. Most modern AIs learn by finding stuff on the Internet. However, if the person was putting information out there for free, then why can’t the AI consume it as well?

OpenAI lawsuit: Maker of ChatGPT sued over alleged data usage | CNN Business
Microsoft, OpenAI sued over Copilot as the generative-AI litigation games begin – Insider Intelligence Trends, Forecasts & Statistic

Some companies, like Apple, are forbidding their employees from using AI tools like ChatGPT and Copilot to avoid those programs from absorbing confidential business data. Apple Restricts Employee Use of ChatGPT, Joining Other Companies Wary of Leaks – WSJ

One of the interesting questions is how long until AI tools like ChatGPT start to consume data that they create? (Something many believe is already happening.) So let’s say I go into ChatGPT to create this page. Then later on ChatGPT scans this page, so it can better create content. It’s output is being used as its input. This can exacerbate errors, which then means, can you trust it? Can We Trust ChatGPT and Artificial Intelligence to Do Humans’ Work? | The Brink | Boston University (bu.edu)

The Quality of Results

There has been a huge improvement in the quality of results of many AI tools recently as they have gotten more funding so they can import more data. However, that doesn’t mean you can always trust the results they produce, as we saw earlier.

CNN wrote several examples based upon articles they had ChatGPT write, showing how it can write bad information, and not know enough to always tell you about it. https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2023/07/business/detect-ai-text-human-writing/

That is why it is so important to test and verify your results. It also leads to should they be smart enough to say that they don’t know the answer to a question, instead of guessing? What types of ethical issues does that incur if you get bad information. While it may not be much if you are looking at simple information, imagine getting bad data while asking a program to diagnosis your medical condition, and/or a legal question? Generative AI Is Coming For the Lawyers | WIRED

Google has built the Med-PaLM AI, which can answer multiple-choice questions from medical licensing exams and common health queries on search engines with greater accuracy than any previous AI and almost as well as human doctors. – Google’s AI is best yet at answering medical and health questions | New Scientist

Types of AI

There are many different types of AI applications. However, they generally are broken down into two main types, narrow and general.

Artificial Narrow Intelligence (ANI) refers to AI that can only do a particular task. It is also known as weak AI or narrow AI. It is programmed to perform singular tasks such as facial recognition, speech recognition in voice assistants, or driving a car.

Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), on the other hand, is a type of AI that can think and function just as humans do. It is also known as strong AI or general AI. AGI is used to solve any problem that requires AI. Some will say that AGI isn’t here yet, others will say that something like ChatGPT which can respond to almost any type of prompt, is a good example of an AGI.

We’re going to look at examples of both of these, and how there are ethical issues, like some that we’ve already seen above.

What is Artificial Intelligence? was originally found on Access 2 Learn