AI (Artificial Intelligence) is a concept that tempts and entices all tech companies and startups. Everyone understands the concept of Artificial Intelligence differently, as well as what it covers. Pop culture has been familiarizing us with the concept of AI for years, thanks to which the images of "thinking" robots do not seem so distant. Nowadays, however, this topic is becoming much closer to reality. How is this technological branch developing? Where is AI most commonly used today? Is the inevitable future approaching, for which the authors of SF have been preparing us all along?

What is Artificial Intelligence?

But let's go back to the roots. The first to start using the concept of "Artificial Intelligence" was in 1956 John McCarthy - a distinguished computer scientist, winner of the Turing Prize in the field of AI, which he studied and developed for most of his life. By definition, AI is the ability of a system to correctly interpret, learn from, and use external data to perform specific tasks and goals through flexible adaptation. Within this field, we find countless elements of many different sciences: neurology, mathematics, psychology, cognitive science, and philosophy. In other words - Artificial Intelligence allows you to simulate a selected aspect of human intelligence. However, let's abandon the academic approach and consider - what is Artificial Intelligence for us, users of 21st-century technologies, and what are the possibilities and advantages of it?

Where do we meet with AI on a daily basis?

Artificial Intelligence tools already have a significant impact on the daily work of many areas of the economy around the world, completing tasks at a speed and efficiency that would not be achievable by humans. AI reigns supreme in the field of data analysis - along with Blockchain technology, it is currently the most important area of development in the Fintech industry. Computational accuracy is the advantage of Artificial Intelligence, which we could get to know by watching movies - it is now a reality. But it is not everything. Currently, more and more areas of human life use the achievements of AI. Examples of introduced solutions are:

• Autonomous cars, using AI on many levels: determining the correct route from A to B, image recognition and obstacle identification, decision making based on data from the environment.
• Monitoring systems - able to identify a person on the basis of an image or predict accidents based on movement.
• Personalized ads - the advertising industry, thanks to AI algorithms aimed at analyzing human behaviour, e.g. on the Internet, can prepare an ad for a given person that corresponds to his or her interests and needs.
• In medicine, AI algorithms play an increasingly important role in helping doctors identify diseases and make an accurate diagnosis.

Above we see just a few examples of the use of AI. Artificial Intelligence enables machines to learn from experience, adapt to new inputs, and perform human-like tasks. The demand for this type of machine and software skills is very high, so the development of AI technology is no surprise to anyone.

What are the types of AI?

We distinguish three types of Artificial Intelligence, which depend - of course - on the degree of intelligence of the machine.

ANI - Artificial Narrow Intelligence

This is actually the only degree of AI we have achieved so far. Artificial Narrow Intelligence is goal-oriented, designed to perform single tasks such as facial recognition, speech recognition/voice assistants, driving a car, or internet searches - and possesses significant traits of intelligence in carrying out the specific task for which it was programmed. Artificial Narrow Intelligence comes from using Natural Language Processing (NLP) to get things done. NLP is evident in chatbots and similar AI technologies. By understanding speech and text in natural language, Artificial Intelligence is programmed to interact with people in a natural, personalized way.

AGI - Artificial General Intelligence

Also known as strong AI or deep AI, it is the concept of a machine with general intelligence that mimics human intelligence and/or behaviour, with the ability to learn and apply its intelligence to solve any problem. AGI can think, understand and act indistinguishably from a person in a given situation. There is still a lack of comprehensive knowledge about how the human brain works in the way of development of this type of Artificial Intelligence. Therefore, Artificial General Intelligence remains a theoretical construct, because so far no machine has been armed with consciousness.

ASI - Artificial Superintelligence

Like AGI, ASI is still a song of the future for humanity. ASI will not only comprehensively imitate human behaviour, but will also surpass human abilities and capabilities. The ASI concept assumes that AI evolves to be so similar to human emotions and experiences that it not only understands them, but evokes its own emotions, needs, beliefs, and desires. Artificial Superintelligence will be great in abstract fields, such as art.

What are the main technologies within AI?

Usually with the term AI there are additional terms such as "Machine learning" and "Deep learning". In short, Machine Learning is one of the areas of development of Artificial Intelligence, while Deep learning is a subcategory of ML. What is it about?

What is Machine Learning?

Machine Learning includes tasks that, on the basis of statistical analyzes and "experience" (data with correct solutions), allow to predict the result or make a decision. Thanks to such learning, algorithms are able to adapt so that the final result is the best possible. Machine Learning uses the Data Mining technique. Ultimately, however, they still need a supervisor who can point out errors to function properly. The most important element of this group is the data to be provided in the learning process.

What is Deep Learning?

As we wrote earlier, Deep Learning is a subcategory of Machine Learning. These are algorithms based on neural networks that allow you to solve problems. They are based on algorithms that can learn spontaneously from the entered data. Based on the data, the program automatically finds patterns that match the task. The difference with ML is that there is no supervisor. It is a way to automate predictive analytics. Such algorithms are able to independently verify whether their prediction was correct. Deep Learning is used, among others in autonomous vehicles, for image recognition and natural language processing.

Although the world presented by the authors of SF works still seems to be very distant from us, we must admit that Artificial Intelligence as a field of technology development in information technology has become a fact. However, it is not a threat like Skynet in "Terminator", it gives us enormous opportunities to make the world simpler and more comfortable. So, answering the question contained in the title of this article - AI is an inevitable future that has already arrived and a trend that is worth following when working in the technology industry.

We should also remember that our emotions, creativity and other qualities that make us human are something that no machine can ever take from us.