Current Artificial Intelligence Capabilities

    "The applications of artificial intelligence are abundant and widespread, especially in developed countries" (ISCID). It is a well known fact that the majority of people take these applications for granted. The current capabilities of artificial intelligence are amazing.

    The most popular application of artificial intelligence is that of game playing. "The most famous example is probably the implementation of the chess game" (Think Quest). These game playing machines "play well against people mainly through brute force computation- looking at hundreds of thousands of positions" (Stanford University).

    Another artificial intelligence application is speech recognition. "Here the computer is to recognize spoken words from a limited vocabulary or understanding continuous speech in fixed domains" (Think Quest). An example of this would be the voice dialing feature of most cellular phones.

    Understanding and producing natural language is yet another capability of artificial intelligence. "The aim here is to make the computer capable of parsing complex sentences and producing text. In addition, efforts are made to implement algorithms that paraphrase longer pieces of text, resolve ambiguous references, or using knowledge of the real world to even understand complete passages" (Think Quest). This requires the computer to have a very large vocabulary and should allow it to summarize a book or even engage in a simple conversation.

    Another artificial intelligence capability is that of diagnosing and treating problems. "Systems that diagnose and treat problems- whether in illnesses in humans or problems in hardware and software- are now in widespread use" (Think Quest). These artificial intelligence based systems can help doctors diagnose and prescribe treatments for their patients. They can also fix problems in most equipment that you would find in the average office.

    Creating original thoughts or works of art is also a capability of artificial intelligence based systems. "In this discipline, the computer is to write poetry, write stories, create computer art, or compose music. These processes involve randomly choosing words or elements out of a data collection or vocabulary, and match specific syntactic patterns by choosing the correct type of word or tone for a certain position in a sentence, poem, or piece of music" (Think Quest). Reading a poem or viewing art created by a computer would most definitely be interesting.

    Yet another capability of artificial intelligence is authorizing financial transactions. "Credit card providers, telephone companies, mortgage lenders, banks, and the United States government employ artificial intelligence systems to detect fraud and expedite financial transactions, with daily transaction volumes in the billions. These systems first use learning algorithms to construct profiles of customer usage patterns, and then use the resulting profiles to detect unusual patterns and take the appropriate action" (Think Quest). An example of this would be whether or not your credit card is accepted at the grocery store.

    Scheduling for manufacturing is another artificial intelligence capability. "The use of automatic scheduling for manufacturing operations is exploding as manufacturers realize that remaining competition demands more efficient use of resources. This artificial intelligence technology- supporting rapid rescheduling up and down the supply chain to respond to changing orders, changing markets, and unexpected events- has shown itself superior to less adaptable systems based on older technology" (Think Quest). It is this capability that many people fear will one day replace the human laborer completely.