Seeds of powerful artificial intelligence are already scattered around the planet

You do not have a flying car, jetpack or beam, but you still think that in the future they will definitely appear. Why? Because we are surrounded by artificial intelligence. It's funny when people ask when we will have smart computers, because they already hold them in their hands. Telephone calls are conducted by artificial intelligence. Whenever you write something into a search string, you use data that is collected by smart algorithms. Our world is full of these limited artificial intelligence programs, which we classify as "weak," "narrowly focused," or "applied."

These programs are far from sensitive, loving or possessed by the power of artificial intellects, which we observed in science fiction, but this is temporary. All these narrowly focused AIs are similar to the amino acids in the primary broth of the Earth. Ingredients for true AI of the human level are created every day, and for a short time we have to wait for the results.

We are surrounded by the jungle of AI

In the late 80's, scientists decided to revise the methods of their search for AI. Rodney Brooks of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (also one of the founders of iRobot) has found a new approach. Instead of developing AI from the top down, he decided to create it from the bottom up. Instead of artificial thinking, he decided to engage in artificial behavior.

As a result, the robots turned out, which built their actions depending on the instincts and models. iRobot Roomba does not vacuum the floor, thinking about what the carpet should look like in the end, it simply performs various cleaning procedures until the carpet becomes clean.

This behavior is based on artificial intelligence, and it's a powerful thing.

Along with the increase in processing power, artificial intelligence began to develop actively in the 90s. Using modular and hierarchical methods, like the Brooks approach, scientists began creating a variety of AIs to perform all sorts of tasks. They were not philosophical programs, they were practical. Analyzing data, tracking stocks and orders, processing images - all these tasks fell on the shoulders of AI.

The list of tasks is growing. We are slowly creating a library of highly focused AI, which impresses us more and more. Speech recognition and processing allows computers to convert audio into text more and more, and vice versa. Google uses AI to analyze millions of videos on YouTube.

Computer vision is also improving, so that programs begin to recognize objects more and more qualitatively, classify them and understand how they move. A narrowly focused AI does not just get better in understanding its surroundings, it starts to understand the difference between what a person says and what he wants.

By assigning different values ​​to different situations, narrowly focused AIs can make choices that maximize their reward. Thanks to this, they learn to overcome obstacles, more accurately recognize objects and text, build ever more complex logical chains.

Artificial intelligence also increasingly analyzes large data sets and synthesizes them. People who create music or pictures are engaged in similar activities.

All these are building blocks for the next explosion of AI instruments.

Need a guard in the form of AI? Computer vision with interpretation of human actions? And what about the program that answers the endless questions of your little son? Or all at once?

Of course, everything is not so simple: I took it, connected it and it works. But each working narrowly focused AI improves and gradually begins to do more complicated things.

There are three key factors that will allow us to create a powerful AI.

1. We need more computing power to fake and simulate the brain.
2. You need to better understand the principle of the brain and how it processes information.
3. It is necessary to find ways of teaching AI to perform increasingly complex tasks.

All these factors are already being fulfilled to some extent.

Futurologists predict an exponential growth of computing power. Various projects explore our brain and are looking for a way to simulate its functions. A growing number of narrowly focused AI, methods of their development, understanding of their work, as well as in-depth training and neural networks gradually satisfy the third requirement.

There are many approaches in AI research and not all of them are compatible, but the more programs that perform simple actions, we create, the faster the hierarchical thinking system of the human level will be built.

When will the first lifeform of a sensitive computer appear? Hard to tell.

But the rudiments of its appearance are already scattered in advanced technologies, which we use day in and day out. Just take the smartphone and ask the artificial intelligence to tell you about the weather, the ruble exchange rate, the hot tours. Thus, you will touch the strings, pull the veins of many modern AI, and they will play in unison.

And that will be better for them.

The article is based on materials https://hi-news.ru/computers/semena-moshhnogo-iskusstvennogo-intellekta-uzhe-razbrosany-po-planete.html.