When I sat down to work on my 20% project this week I was struck with the realization that my topic, Artificial Intelligence, is broad. There is a lot of avenues I can take with my research, so I felt like the best place to start would be just to define it, and look at all the different types that already exist. I began by Googling, “Basic facts about Artificial Intelligence,” and found a lot of resources created by financial websites like Business Insider and Fortune Magazine. This struck me as interesting since I have always pictured scientists working on robots, not Wall Street guys looking at predictive statistics. I will definitely come back to this new revelation once I feel like I can fully define it. The basic definition I found says AI is a computer program that uses techniques called “machine learning” which allows a computer to practice, and get better at tasks that historically have only been able to be done by humans (review.content-science.com). An example of this is IBM’s Watson beating two of “Jeopardy’s leading winners. Check out this video to see it in action: I then began reading about AI making strides towards plainer language. Okay… pause. I wasn’t sure what the site meant by what I imagine is a robot language--a quick jump to another article showed me that since a lot of the things we use, health insurance, finances, etc. have their own language, companies are moving toward a “plainer language;” a more universal language that will help its users understand it better, and in turn spend less time confused, and more time spending money. (Sidenote- This made me think of “Newspeak” from 1984).
This can be seen in something called “chatbots.” These were designed to streamline the process of communicating to a business when you have an issue. Essentially robots are taking over the help hotlines for companies, and making it a streamlined process. Facebook made waves in 2014 when they bought WhatsApp for this purpose. Instead of calling a helpline, punching in a ton of key codes, and waiting on hold, consumers can now instant message companies for assistance with all their information being digitally processed instead of verbally verified. I just recently interacted with a chatbot named “James” through Weebly, who helped me problem solve the login issues my classes were having a few weeks ago. I walk away this week having way more questions than answers. I think I am going to investigate more of what types of AI are currently in use, or under development. My Sources: https://review.content-science.com/2017/01/artificial-intelligence-fact-sheet/ https://review.content-science.com/2016/06/increase-content-usefulness-with-plain-language/ https://venturebeat.com/2016/05/01/the-200-billion-dollar-chatbot-disruption/
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