Artificial Intelligence is expanding its presence in our lives today. The AI market is booming and every business is harnessing the power of AI. It has also been dubbed our “Final Invention,” a creation that would bring in ground-breaking tools and services that could exponentially change how we live our lives, eradicating conflict, inequality, and human suffering. In this blog, we discuss the types of Artificial Intelligence and what they can do.
The Goal of Artificial Intelligence
The goal of Artificial Intelligence is to augment human capabilities and assist us in making complex decisions with far-reaching consequences. Artificial Intelligence has the potential to help humans live more meaningful lives free of hard labour, as well as to assist in managing the complex web of interconnected individuals, businesses, states, and nations to function in a way that benefits all of humanity.
Currently, the purpose of Artificial Intelligence is shared by all the various tools and techniques that we’ve invented over the last thousand years – to simplify human effort and assist us in making better decisions. But that’s all in the distant future; we’re still a long way from those kinds of outcomes.
AI is currently being used primarily by businesses to improve process efficiencies, automate resource-intensive tasks, and make business predictions based on hard data rather than gut feelings. As with all previous technologies, the costs of research and development must be borne by corporations and government agencies before it is made available to the general public.
Different Kinds of Artificial Intelligence?
Not all types of AI can work in all environments. Different Artificial Intelligence entities are designed for specific purposes, which is why they differ. There are three types of Artificial Intelligence and they are as listed below:
- Artificial Narrow Intelligence (ANI)
- Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)
- Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI)
Artificial Narrow Intelligence (ANI)
This is the most common type of AI on the market right now. These Artificial Intelligence systems are designed to solve a single problem and perform a single task exceptionally well. They have limited capabilities by definition, such as recommending a product to an e-commerce user or predicting the weather.
This is the only type of Artificial Intelligence that currently exists. They can mimic and even outperform human performance in very specific contexts, excelling only in highly controlled environments with a limited set of parameters.
Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)
AGI is still a speculative concept. It is defined as artificial intelligence with human-level cognitive function across a wide range of domains such as language processing, image processing, computational functioning and reasoning, and so on. We’re still a long way from developing an AGI system. The AGI system requires several thousands of Artificial Narrow Intelligence systems, all working in an organized manner, to replicate human behaviour.
Even with the most advanced computing systems and infrastructures available, such as Fujitsu’s K or IBM’s Watson, it took 40 minutes to simulate a single second of neuronal activity. This reflects both the enormous complexity and interconnectedness of the human brain, as well as the enormity of the challenge of creating an AGI with our current resources.
Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI)
We’re almost in science-fiction territory here, but ASI is seen as the logical next step after AGI. A system of Artificial Super Intelligence (ASI) would be able to outperform all human capabilities. This includes things like making better art and building emotional relationships, as well as decision making and rational decision making.
Once we achieve Artificial General Intelligence, AI systems will be able to rapidly improve their capabilities and advance into realms we could never have imagined. While the gap between AGI and ASI would be relatively narrow (some say as little as a nanosecond because that is how fast Artificial Intelligence would learn), the long journey ahead of us towards AGI itself makes this appear to be a concept that lies far into the future
There is no doubt that technology has improved our lives. AI and other technologies have taken over everything from music recommendations to map directions to mobile banking to fraud prevention. But there is a fine line between progress and destruction. The world is yet to witness how AI will revolutionize the world in the coming times.
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