Everyone today seems to be talking about artificial intelligence. The entertainment industry views it as money-making science fiction; privacy rights groups worry about all-seeing monitoring of private data; technology leaders warn us of possible doomsday scenarios; economists worry about how it will impact labor markets. I can tell you one thing: right now, artificial intelligence is the hot buzzword in the tech investment industry. If you want to attract a lot of venture and investment capital interest, smear yourself with some artificial intelligence stink.
Today, many people only have a vague sense of what Artificial Intelligence is, what it can and cannot do, and where the future is moving. I’m not an expert in this area, but maybe I can clear up some of the confusion, misinformation, and general nonsense that is floating around. First off – and I always start here – is the relevant Wikipedia page at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_intelligence
While we at it, I’d like to clear up another misconception first. Wikipedia is not only an incredibly valuable resource for all sorts of information, it really is the best place to start your research into most any topic. Articles offer a good introduction and overview of the topic, can fill you in on the general terminology of the subject, and lead you to other resources. I don’t know if there is still a stigma about Wikipedia, but if you’re somehow reluctant to use it, I have some advice: Let it go. Use the Wiki. You’re welcome.
As you can see from the link, artificial intelligence is a broad category that covers a lot of areas. What it really boils down to is in its name – an intelligence that is not ‘natural’ (i.e. from an organism), but created artificially. For our purposes, we’ll assume that artificial intelligence is some sort of program (e.g. what people call ‘apps’) that will try to mimic intelligence. Yeah, you could argue that a good quality, accurate watch demonstrates a lot more intelligence than your neighbor down the street, but let’s not digress.
When I was getting my degree in Mathematics (yes, I’m one of those, the nerdiest of the nerds), one of my graduate classes explored something called Turing Machines. They are named after their inventor, Alan Turing, whom you might have seen portrayed in the recent movie ‘The Imitation Game‘. Good movie, go rent, uh, stream it. While you’re at it, watch ‘The Man Who Knew Infinity‘ at the same time; not many movies where the math guy is the hero.
Turing was an important figure in the early history of computer science. Here is some background:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing
One of Turing’s contributions was something called the Turing Test. Essentially, it is a way of testing to see if something is indeed intelligent. It comes down to this: if a program can fool you into thinking it is a real person, it is intelligent and has passed the Turing Test.
Has a program ever passed the Turing Test? Well, it depends on what you mean by passed. There is a lot of debate about it, involving things like how long you have to fool someone, are there limited subjects that can be discussed, and how many people are fooled. There are even cash prizes for developers who create programs that pass the test. Let’s just say that, if the test has not yet been beaten, we appear to be close. The dawn of the true era of artificial intelligence is now.