We’re in the midst of a revolution: artificial intelligence is changing every industry. One of the latest “inventions” launched by Google at the last edition of Google Next, for example, is a system capable of automatically carrying out a damage survey following a car accident. That’s currently a task completed manually by insurance experts, but with artificial intelligence (AI), we can obtain an automatic – and immediate – estimate of the damage, which equates into big savings in terms of both time and cost. Another example can be found in the world of customer service: Google has developed a smart voice assistance system that can improve the telephone experience of users and ease the burden on switchboards. So if this where we are now, what more can we expect?
The Google model
« The Google philosophy is to develop artificial intelligence while keeping individuals centre stage, » said Jia Li, the Head of R&D for Google Cloud AI, in an interview with Forbes magazine. « We’re developing models inspired by day-to-day needs and our mission is to solve the challenges facing humanity. That’s why we collaborate with a huge number of companies from a wide range of different sectors. » According to Google, artificial intelligence will be so « intelligent » that it will cease to be necessary to train users and workers. « In the future, AI will be so smart and ‘comfortable’ that we’ll be able to generate machine learning models without requiring any experience in the sector. There will be tools that will make our relationship with AI an implicit experience – something we’ll almost take for granted, » she added.
The new intelligent smartphones
Artificial intelligence in now part of our private lives. In October, Huawei unveiled the hotly anticipated Huawei Mate 20, the new smartphone from the Chinese company. It represents a new frontier for mobile telephony and promises to boost the power we hold at our fingertips. Mate 20 is equipped with two neural processors to enable artificial intelligence – and will continue to learn as time goes on. This new smartphone is more like a smart assistant that can help us in our work. how? Take Huawei’s 3D modelling app, for example, which allows the user to use the camera to take a recording of the object before creating a highly detailed portrayal of this on the screen – and all in just a few seconds. In this case, artificial intelligence could increase accessibility to the world of 3D printing, which is struggling to take off. This type of tech could open the doors to the masses and give 3D printing a much-needed boost.
Artificial intelligence and mankind
The level of innovation that AI will bring into our lives « will be something incredible, comparable only with the invention of electricity » said Accenture’s Chief Technology & Innovation Officer Paul Daugherty, at the Meet the Media Guru event, held at Milan’s National Science and Technology Museum. But will AI replace mankind? According to Daugherty, technology is neutral – it’s the way that mankind uses that technology that could change the world. Accenture, therefore, envisages a future based on collaborative development shared by man and machine, not a situation where one replaces the other. This idea goes to the very heart of AI – it’s a collaborative technology centred around a two-way relationship between man and machine. While mankind uses its skills to create the machine and programmes it with the necessary data required to make it work, the machine in turn unlocks greater possibilities for mankind and allows us to fully take advantage of our creative potential.