What Is Artificial Intelligence?

Today, we can't talk about technology, digital business and advancement in industries without mentioning emerging technologies, such as artificial intelligence; however, few people really understand what AI is and what it is for.

One of the most important characteristics of the human species is intelligence. This characteristic not only distinguishes us from various animal species, it also moves us forward as a civilization.  One of the definitions of intelligence that I like the most is that which refers to the ability to learn, understand and apply what is learned in real life. For example, if I learn mathematics, I can understand the rules of that subject and why those rules exist and then apply that knowledge to solving problems in my daily life.  Accordingly, I ask you: would it be useful for us to learn something, to understand it and then to apply it in absolutely nothing in our daily lives?

What we know as artificial intelligence (AI) is defined as software (i.e., a series of instructions that someone wrote in the form of code), which mimics human capabilities. Today, the main functions of artificial intelligence are:

1. Make predictions and make decisions based on data and past experiences.

2. Interpret visual information.         

3. Understand written and spoken language.          

1. Make predictions and make decisions based on data and past experiences.      

This use of artificial intelligence is the most common. This technology is known as machine learning and consists of predicting behaviors or events through data analysis. To explain this technology, an example of something we encounter daily will suffice: spam. Email accounts have an artificial intelligence engine that analyzes the messages they send us by that means to determine if an email is spam or not. Continuing with this example, we will see that the first step is to formulate a hypothesis about the variables of the email that could indicate if it is spam, such as the title, the sender, if it says our name or not, if it comes from a source with which you have communicated, if it has any title that may seem commercial, etc. All these variables constitute what we call vectors. Based on the data, the artificial intelligence algorithm creates a statistical model to determine the probability that a new email has to be sent to the spam tray. Up to this point, this whole problem is a probability problem. Where is the use of artificial intelligence? Every time someone presses the button classifying an email as spam, the model is recalculated (or trained), the weights of the variables in our vector change (this is intelligence: from the data, make a prediction) and the more email data we have, the more accurate become the predictions of our artificial intelligence.

Let's look at some examples of AI by sector:

Retail. Today, we have technologies that analyze the purchases at physical stores: by amount, time, article, person, gender, age, etc. This is done to create a model that anticipates purchases and recommends promotions that increase sales at those points.  Currently we have cases of stores that have doubled their sales using this technology.

Financial. Through the analysis of data related to credit generation and payment, it is easy to generate a model that can predict who will pay their credits and who will not. There are many companies in this sector taking advantage of this technology.

Cybersecurity. There are technologies that, based on the analysis of data about the behaviors of users, systems and networks, can determine, through predictive analysis, when there is suspicious behavior in a network or system. Thus, through a prediction you can determine if it is an attack or not.

2. Interpret visual information.      

In the world of computing, the interpretation of images is called computer vision. Through computer vision it is possible to interpret images, such as car plates, signs and letters. Today, we have already trained models in which we can detect faces and even determine the feeling that a person has by their facial expression.

A practical use we are giving to this technology is the detection of fraud in exams. There is a need to allow online exams and detect possible fraud. With this technology, it can be determined, among other things, that the person who is writing the exam is the one who registered and not another. It can also monitor you against the use of other devices or books during the exam or if you are communicating with other users.

3. Understand written and spoken language.     

This is one of the most used. Distinct brands have taken advantage of this technology to develop personal assistants that with voice codes can execute pre-programmed actions.

Also, thanks to this technology it is possible to immediately incorporate subtitles to all video content, which opens a great opportunity for people with a hearing impairment.

As we can see, artificial intelligence is a discovery that has become one of our most important resources to improve, to unimagined degrees, each of the tasks we carry out daily. That is why it is necessary to understand how it works and use it to our advantage and make the most of this powerful technological tool.