Artificial
Intelligence (AI), Machine
Learning
(ML),
Robots,
and
the
Internet of Things (IoT) will
help solve some
of the major
challenges the
world is
currently facing in
healthcare, transportation, finance,
defense, manufacturing.
However,
there are also some major issues and risks that come with these
technologies.
This
article attempts to provide a quick, high level overview of
Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine
Learning
(ML)
technologies
and
their potential to massively impact and disrupt civilization as we
know it today.
Let’s start with a definition of these two new, related
technologies.
-
Artificial
Intelligence (AI)
-
Refers
to intelligence exhibited
by machines.
In computer
science,
the term "artificial intelligence" is applied when a
machine mimics cognitive functions generally
associated
with human
minds,
such as ‘learning’ and ‘problem solving’.
-
Machine
Learning
(ML)
-
Machine
learning is
considered
a subset of the
field of Artificial
Intelligence (AI).
It
generally refers to ‘smart’ machines that have the ability
to learn without being explicitly programmed by
humans.
| Artificial
Intelligence (AI) is one of the hottest areas of technology
research and
development.
Major
corporations
like IBM, Google, Microsoft, Facebook and Amazon are investing
heavily in this
area and are buying
up startups that have made progress in areas like machine learning
and
neural networks. -
Datamation |
‘Open
Source’ AI & ML Solutions
The
‘Open
Source’ software
development methodology and business model
is at
the
heart of the
rapid evolution and innovation of Artificial
Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning
(ML)
technologies
and
solutions.
Based
on a review of recent articles on software, the following are brief
profiles on some of the
best of the currently available ‘open source’ AI
and ML solutions
that we all ought to know
a little more about as they begin to flow into industry, e.g.
manufacturing, finance, healthcare, defense.
TensorFlow
-
An
open source software library for ‘machine
intelligence’
originally developed by researchers and engineers working on the
Google Brain Team within Google's Machine Intelligence R&D
organization.
-
Accord.NET
is
a .NET machine learning (ML)
framework
combined with audio and image processing libraries completely
written in C#. It is a complete framework for building usable
production-grade
applications.
-
Amazon
Machine Learning (AML) provides
visualization tools and wizards that guide you through the process
of creating machine learning (ML) models without having to learn
complex ML algorithms and technology.
Apache
–
Check
out some of the
more notable Apache
AI &
ML
Projects,
such
as Mahout,
Prediction,
Spark
MLlib,
and
Singa.
-
Caffe
was
the brainchild of Yangqing Jia who is now the lead engineer for the
Facebook
AI
platform. Caffe is the first mainstream industry-grade ‘deep
learning’ toolkit. The
Facebook
team
is
now working on Caffe
2.
-
CNTK
is Microsoft’s
open source ‘deep learning’ cognitive
toolkit that is available
on GitHub.
-
H2O
is
the
world’s leading open source ‘deep learning’ AI
platform. H2O is used by over 80,000 data scientists and more than
9,000 organizations around the world.
-
OpenAI
is a non-profit AI
research
organization
associated
with business magnate Elon
Musk. The organization strives
to ‘freely collaborate’ with other institutions and researchers
by making its AI
and ML patents
and research ‘open’ to the public.
-
Shogun
is a collaborative
free
and
open source ‘machine
learning’ toolbox
written in C++.
-
Torch
is
a scientific computing framework offering
wide support for machine learning algorithms that puts GPUs first.
It is easy to use and efficient, thanks to an easy and fast
scripting language called
LuaJIT.
Key
Issues
Artificial
Intelligence (AI) and
Machine Learning (ML) technologies
are
already
being
deployed in many industries,
e.g. finance,
healthcare,
manufacturing,
transportation,
defense. However, some
of the key issues that need to be more
fully addressed
over the coming decade before these
systems
are widely deployed include:
-
Ethics
-
The moral behavior being programmed by humans into robots and other
'smart' AI systems, e.g. Roboethics.
-
Privacy
& Security – When AI
systems are turned loose to monitor your
personal information, who
it is being shared with and
how they are using it must
be better addressed
and understood.
-
Legal
Issues – What is the legal standing of intelligent
machines of the future and who is responsible for the actions they
may take that could harm you.
The
Bank of England has predicted that intelligent machines might take
over 80 million US and 15 million British jobs, respectively over
the next 10 to 20 years. Think of what this means for you and your
livelihood.
|
If
you are concerned and want to learn more about AI and ML technologies
and their potential to ‘rock your world’, you might want to check
out the following items:
Conclusion
& Next Steps
As
you begin to delve deeper into the key issues raised above, many
other
questions begin
to arise that actually
touch on the future
of mankind as
we know it.
Many
of these issues
and questions
have
not yet begun to be
discussed
and addressed
by many of our leaders in the public and private sector.
That should be of concern to us all. Fortunately, the collaborative
‘open source’ approach
being
used to develop these new technologies has brought tens of thousands
of our
best minds
to bear on these issues.
| WARNING:
Stephen Hawking has said the development of full Artificial
Intelligence (AI) could spell the end of the human race – and
Elton Musk agreed. |
Have
you begun to think about Artificial Intelligence and ‘Smart’
Machines? How do you think they will impact you and the lives of your
children? Share your constructive thoughts with our readers.
