Week 2 - MBA 6601 - Current State of AI

Surfing the Tsunami presents interesting information about self driving vehicles and the way computers learn and process. A fully automated self driving car has been in the works for a while. These self driving test cars are full of sensors and record image after image to learn and process everything that is going on around them. As the cars make mistakes, they improve the system with those mistakes and help prevent them from occurring again int he future. Most places do not allow fully automated self driving cars and still require by law that there is a human at the wheel.

In order for AI to work and actually accomplish tasks, there has to be both hardware and software in place. It is impossible to have one without the other if you want something to function properly. The hardware is a series of connected circuits and the software is already preloaded or downloadable by updates through the internet most often, utilizing a computer or device. Software used to be on floppy discs, if you are old enough to remember what those are, or CDs. Hardware can be altered, but not as common or as often as software. Software is continually updating and changing. Computers are continually collecting data and learning new things that make them more and more like the human brain. You cannot drive down the road without seeing those mirror sensors light up as you go past a car, letting the driver know that someone is there and they should not change lanes.

Advice is always at our fingertips, er um voice, with all the automated offerings within our world today. From Siri to Google to Alexa, they are always ready and waiting to answer any question you may have. Each one of these options when accessed has a large information bank where they can find the answers to whatever you may be searching for. If it can not find what is specifically asked, they are always ready with a list of recommendations. 

AI also plays a big part in automation. One form of physical automation that is prevalent and has been in place for some time is manufacturing robots. A whole bunch of robots complete a single task in a series and the entire thing forms a process. We have moved into a time where virtual processes are also in place. Virtual processes can include something as simple as the work that an Excel spreadsheet is capable of doing for the user all the way up to a computer system that figures out the best route for a complex process to use in order to make it optimally function. Then the virtual systems execute those processes. With a computer that is able to use a decision tree and then execute a task, that eliminates the need for a physical human to be present as it is entirely automated. That is not a good thing for the workforce. 

AI also includes analysis. Analysis is a sophisticated process that uses some kind of flowchart to help lead to a recommendation or final answer, hopefully. The analysis is happening quickly and may also be occurring in a maze like setting with multiple choices and decisions to make in order to arrive at the final decision. It utilizes a ton of information to help it answer the next decision to move on to the next step. Algorithms are being trained to function more like the human brain so they can use all of the information inputs and gather all of the data, just as you or I would through learning and experiences, in order to make more educated guesses about what should be recommended next. The algorithm will learn what is the most important information out of the set and it will run with that decision.