AI or Artificial Intelligence is a relatively new tech term in India. Not many are clear about it or how it differs from other tech terms in the same domain - Machine Learning, Deep Learning, Analytics and so on. We will be increasingly seeing and using AI powered machines/gadgets in India in the near future. For example, Google Maps, an app so widely used by us, uses AI. Robotics is another field that is AI intensive. Home robots are becoming more robust, trustworthy and affordable and as a result are entering more homes. This trend is true of India too. Sure, Indian robots have limited intelligence at this time but they are getting smarter and more capable by the day. At ₹20,000/= (1667 per month) Indian robots capable of sweeping and mopping floors are already threatening to overtake the maid-servant dominated sweeping and swabbing job field at home.
So let's learn what this term really means - and, what it doesn't!
AI refers to the ability of a machine to automatically and continuously learn about/ from its environment based on the amount of "intelligence" pre-programmed into it. And based on its accumulated "knowledge" at any point in time, to perform tasks that are useful to its owner.
Let me explain with the help of a sufficiently intelligent AI device - say, a robot that's designed to talk to us, learn about us and perform assistant tasks based on our preferences. Let's say his name MyNao. We buy him from some store and bring him home. He is powered-on and fully 'alive'. When MyNao 'sees' you for the first time, you are a stranger. So, he might take your photo and store it in his internal memory. With some data inside, MyNao is curious to learn more about you, so he might ask 'Who are you?'. If you reply 'I'm Amit', he will assign the name 'Amit' to your pic. Now, MyNao has captured a photo and the name of its owner viz. 'Amit', so the next time it 'sees' you, he might say 'Hi, Amit!' (because he can 'recognize' you now). MyNao has been pre-programmed to interact with human beings and 'knows' that you are one. So the next time through he might ask (assuming that he cannot make out male from female by sight) 'What is your sex? Male or Female?'. You tell him 'Male'. He will add this detail to the data he has about you. Then referring to his in-built knowledge about men, he'll get ready to ask you tens and hundreds of questions about men viz. 'What do you do for a living?', 'What is your ethnicity?', 'Are you married?', 'What's your wife's name?', 'Do you have any kids?' and so on. Note that when he finds something new about you, he adds that to his self-learned 'knowledge' (about you) and gets ready to ask a whole new set of questions in his next learning cycle. This he does continuously ad infinitum.
The above is one of the most important capabilities of AI i.e. a self-learning "engine" that learns more and more about the objects it is designed to interact with over time.
Another important capability of AI is to select intelligently from a set of alternatives and perform the one that is of greatest value to its owner. So, if MyNao had been residing in Amit's house for sufficiently long, like an expert, he would know everything about Amit. What time he wakes up, how long it takes for him to get ready and have breakfast, when he leaves for work, names of his family members, pets, what job he does, when he returns home, his moods, how he likes to be entertained and so on. Being so knowledgeable about Amit, on a day when he returns home late, tired and harassed, knowing his entertainment preferences he might ask 'Tired, Amit? Can I play an AR Rahman hit for you? Or some of Kishore Kumar's top favourites?'.
So that's AI in a nutshell - a self-learning machine that builds up knowledge about its environment over time and performs useful tasks intelligently based on that knowledge.
