Machine Learning Matters
Being an Infrastructure consultant having 20+ years of experience in IT industry I myself is not convinced with the tasks I do day to day. I always feel that there should be some better way to do the task by applying more and more science and math’s into our daily life. I am very passionate about learning about disruptive technologies. I did some basic search on the net on machine learning and artificial intelligence. Here it goes.
As most of us aware that “Artificial intelligence “will shape our future more powerfully than any other innovation this century. In today’s world we have so many disruptive technologies the person who does not understand these disruptive technologies will soon find themselves feeling left behind, waking up in a world full of technology that feels more and more like magic. The rate of acceleration is astounding. The rapid advances in data storage and computer processing power have dramatically changed the game in recent years.
We know that artificial intelligence is the study of agents that perceive the world around them, form plans, and make decisions to achieve their goals. Its foundations include mathematics, neuroscience, logic, probability, philosophy, linguistics, and decision theory. Many fields fall under the umbrella of AI, such as computer vision, robotics, machine learning, and natural language processing.
The Machine learning is a subfield of artificial intelligence. The goal is to enable computers to learn on their own. A machine’s learning algorithm enables it to identify patterns in observed data, build models that explain the world, and predict things without having explicit pre-programmed rules and models.
Machine learning is at the core of our journey towards artificial general intelligence, and in the meantime, it will change every industry and have a massive impact on our day-to-day lives. That’s why we believe it’s worth understanding machine learning, at least at a conceptual level.
In the year 2015, Google trained a conversational agent (AI) that could not only convincingly interact with humans as a tech support helpdesk, but also discuss morality, express opinions, and answer general facts-based questions.
The same year 2015, DeepMind developed an agent that surpassed human-level performance at 49 Atari games, receiving only the pixels and game score as inputs. Soon after, in 2016, DeepMind obsoleted their own achievement by releasing a new state-of-the-art gameplay method called A3C.
Meanwhile, AlphaGo defeated one of the best human players at Go — an extraordinary achievement in a game dominated by humans for two decades after machines first conquered chess. Many masters could not fathom how it would be possible for a machine to grasp the full nuance and complexity of this ancient Chinese war strategy game, with its 10¹⁷⁰ possible board positions (there are only 10⁸⁰atoms in the universe).
In March 2017, OpenAI created agents that invented their own language to cooperate and more effectively achieve their goal. Soon after, Facebook reportedly successfully training agents to negotiate and even lie.
On August 11, 2017, OpenAI reached yet another incredible milestone by defeating the world’s top professionals in 1v1 matches of the online multiplayer game Dota 2.
Much of our day-to-day technology is powered by artificial intelligence. Point your camera at the menu during your next trip to Taiwan and the restaurant’s selections will magically appear in English via the Google Translate app.
Today AI is used to design evidence-based treatment plans for cancer patients, instantly analyze results from medical tests to escalate to the appropriate specialist immediately, and conduct scientific research for drug discovery.
In everyday life, it’s increasingly commonplace to discover machines in roles traditionally occupied by humans. Really, don’t be surprised if a little housekeeping delivery bot shows up instead of a human next time you call the hotel desk to send up some toothpaste.
A recent report by the Future of Humanity Institute surveyed a panel of AI researchers on timelines for AGI, and found that “researchers believe there is a 50% chance of AI outperforming humans in all tasks in 45 years” (Grace et al, 2017). According to researchers they have personally spoken with a number of sane and reasonable AI practitioners who predict much longer timelines (the upper limit being “never”), and others whose timelines are alarmingly short — as little as a few years.
Conclusion:
The advent of greater-than-human-level artificial superintelligence (ASI) could be one of the best or worst things to happen to our species. It carries with it the immense challenge of specifying what AIs will want in a way that is friendly to humans.
Courtesy: Medium Corporation.US.