Artificial Intelligence

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is often depicted by science fiction authors and scientists as potentially equal—or superior—to human intelligence. Yet this dream may remain elusive until machines attain the basic human virtue of common sense, which the pioneering AI scientist Marvin Minsky defines as "an immense society of hard-earned practical ideas." (cited in Kurzweil, 2000, p. 91). Clearly, true AI, once it exists, would have an extraordinary impact on human society; denial of its possibilities could eventually shatter humanity's complacent belief in its guiding role as the planet's most intelligent form of life.

Meantime, other AI researchers are developing non-sentient "intelligent tools," applications that mimic particular human knowledge skills. These subsets of AI, such as data mining, neural networks, speech recognition and lip reading, behavior recognition, and face recognition, to name a few, are becoming increasingly powerful—and indispensable—to human organizations (Hogan, 1998).

Intelligent tools empower organizations to automate and rapidly complete mind-numbing tasks that would overwhelm an army of humans. Data mining, for example, is ideally suited to a powerful computer's ability to discern patterns from immense datasets. For retailers, knowledge of customer spending patterns permits more cost-effective advertising through targeted marketing campaigns. For the United States Government, the ability to analyze huge datasets (e.g., e-mail, Internet activity, telecommunications, and credit card transactions) may prove invaluable to the new national surveillance system, "Terrorist Information Awareness" (TIA), whose purpose is to uncover suspicious activity. (Negnevitsky, 2005). Intelligent tools will also become m...

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...rtificial intelligence is also changing psychological thought processes in the military, medicine, engineering and other fields. Military men now face less exposure to the psychological dangers of war thanks to improved technology that improves military operations like surveillance and combat. It also improves training, boosting psychological preparedness of the soldiers to real life battle situations.

Artificial intelligence shall certainly by a big part of our daily lives; from how we interact with machines to how we use the most common tools in our daily lives. Artificial intelligence certainly has a place in the future of humanity. Although the danger of machines taking over too much of human interaction and work, the human mind, as explored earlier in the paper, certainly has the ability to adapt to the challenges that artificial intelligence shall present.