Nowadays, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has shifted from a thing of the future to a technology that is influencing nearly everything we do on a daily basis. If it’s not in the form of using social media or asking your smart speaker a question, AI is managing other processes behind the scenes such as obtaining driving directions. The influence of AI points to aspects of communication, health care, transportation, entertainment, business, and more. Let’s talk about how AI is changing life in modern society.
- Communication and Virtual assistants AI is changing how we communicate with one another and seek information. Virtual assistants such as Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant, are built around natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning technologies to allow users to give verbal commands, which are then translated into instructions and form a correct response or action. In other words, these tools support users in:
Setting reminders and alarms
Texting someone and phone calls hands-free
Controlling smart devices (e.g., light or thermostat)
Searching questions and answers and accessing a quick search in web resources
AI is also being used within messaging platforms and chatbots for customer service interactions that can converse like humans to help resolve some basic common issues without needing a human agent.
- Personalized Content and Recommendations
Personalization is one of the most prevalent uses of AI. Personalization is the use of algorithms that take real-time data from how users behave on a website or platform to create unique content and services tailored to an individual user’s needs. Here are some examples of AI personalization in practice:
Streaming platforms (example: Netflix, Spotify) use AI personalization to provide targeted recommendations for shows, movies or music to watch/listen to based on what you have previously watched/listened to.
E-commerce platforms (example: Amazon) use AI personalization to recommend products that you might be interested in, use dynamic pricing for items, or utilize ‘demand forecasting’ to create less excess stock.
News feeds and social media platforms (example: Facebook, TikTok, YouTube) provide videos/posts/ads to watch that are personal recommendations based on the type of content you engage with on the platform, along with your interactions, followers, subscriptions, and expressed interests.
All of these platforms are constantly learning and improving the user experience every time you use it, providing a very unique experience for you on that platform.
- The Role of AI in Health and Wellness
The role of AI continues to increase in importance in the health sector. AI is used for diagnosis tools and patient’s care tools. AI does much to improve the accuracy, efficiency, and accessibility of health diagnostic and care processes in the health system.
Diagnostic imaging: AI algorithms can analyze a multitude of aspects of medical imaging (X-rays, MRIs, CT-scans etc) in order to identify smaller traces of disease for example cancer, fractures, or even infection much more quickly than a traditional radiologist and with factual accuracy.
Health monitoring wearables (e.g. Apple Watch, FitBit). Health monitoring wearables provide tracking of numerous observation of health/paramedic observations in combination including heart rate, measurements of sleep, measures of activity, remind users of pathological health concerns such as notifying users around abnormal heart rhythms. Health monitoring apps can provide community specific disease tracking, underlying health conditions, vaccination status etc.
Virtual health assistants: Remind patients to take medications, provides symptom monitoring and self-care assistance to users. Health information around related topics.
Predictive analytics: Hospitals and Doctors use AI instrumentation to prognosticate concerning potential health threats generally prior to criticality based on historical as well as actual patient data.
AI in health has several additional applications including drug discovery and development, robotic-assisted procedures, providing an applications for large data set management public health.
- Transportation and Navigation
Artificial Intelligence has created a new paradigm in how we navigate across the globe which is relevant not only to individuals and their personal travel experiences, but also for how larger scale systems move people and goods.
Navigation Applications (e.g. Google Maps, Waze): utilize real time traffic data and predictive algorithmic modeling to propose best alternate routes such as avoiding congested streets or limiting time spent in traffic. Many also warn users if other people are involved in an accident or if another road is closed.
Rideshare/Transportation Services (e.g. Uber, Lyft): create ridesharing based on driver availability and user pickup location. The rideshare services also utilize algorithmic surge based pricing to determine cost based on predicted travel time, distance to pick up location and potential traffic conditions.
Autonomous Vehicles: self-driving cars, such as from Tesla, Waymo, etc., use AI to inform decision making and identify objects on the roadway (cars, motorcycles, pedestrians). Autonomous vehicles have sensors and cameras that are capable of analyzing and processing massive amounts of real-time information to identify both another vehicle, pedestrian or traffic control devices as well as responding to travel legal regulations (traffic lights).
Transit Optimization: Cities are using AI to manage traffic light systems, measure and monitor efficiency of public transportation transit systems, and even predicting voyage demand of bus or train services.
- Smart Home and IoT (Internet of Things)
Today’s smart homes contain sophisticated artificial intelligence to make life easier, safer, and more energy efficient.
Smart thermostats (Nest, etc.) learn user habits, and then automatically alter heating/cooling schedules to lessen workloads (energy).
Security systems that control the door and have facial recognition and motion detection so a homeowner can monitor potential intruders in real time.
Smart white goods (smart refrigerators can track inventory, highlight potential recipes from available items, and alert you when you need groceries).
Enabling voice control allows the user to switch on and off several connected devices (lights, curtains, locks, etc.) using only basic voice commands.
These features can generally be coordinated into the larger Internet of Things (IOT), where devices can communicate with each other and provide an uncomplicated and useful living arrangement.
- AI in Education
AI has provided smart solutions for enhancing education, enriching both learning and teaching experiences.
Adaptive learning platforms – rate at which students can learn the lesson material depends on the student’s strengths and weaknesses. There are many accessible solutions, i.e. Khan Academy and Coursera.
Automated grading – AI can now grade multiple choice and sometimes short answer questions, thus giving teachers time back and providing feedback to the student immediately rather than at the end of semester.
Tutoring systems – whether using AI chatbots or virtual tutors, students have access to educational support when teachers are not their. AI will also be able to help student with view points or reinforcement.
Language Learning Applications – Similarly, they can also use AI to adapt the learning difficulty, learning material or landing vocabulary to consistently match the progress of the student. Programs like Duolingo provide these type of services.
These programs are making education more accessible to a variety of learners.
- AI and Productivity in the Workplace
AI is increasing workplace productivity by enhancing efficiency (removing repetitive and low-level tasks), improving decision-making processes with better access to information and improving communication processes.
Email filtering and sorting: AI found in programs such as Gmail is capable of moving important emails to the top of your inbox or filtering messages so spam gets detected.
Project planning and management: AI project tools can evaluate timelines, workloads and made improvements to recommendations to move or adjust tasks to be more efficient, identify where resources can be allocated better and allocate as necessary.
Customer service: AI chatbots can answer customers’ questions instantly and eliminate long response times which have led to more customer satisfaction.
Human Resources and recruiting: AI can scan resumes of real candidates, match them to roles and even support the HR department in determining the best candidate for the job quicker.
AI is also being used in financial forecasting, fraud detection and inventory management as well. These are just a few ways AI is impacting how a business operates.
