10 Significant Advancements in Artificial Intelligence

mars rover

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is one of the most exciting scientific fields in existence today. The ability for humans to program machines to execute complex tasks has allowed for huge technological advancements in society already, and the possibilities really are endless. There are many aspects of life that are being advanced by AI tech today, and I thought I would go through a few of the most pressing areas today. AI advancements have or will propel us forward in all of the following fields, though obviously we have to use caution with inventing tech that may someday be able to outsmart us all. Here are ten areas in which AI is advancing significantly.

1. Personal Assistance

AIs are becoming advanced enough where the famed “robot butler” or “robot maid” might not be that far off. They could be purchased as a luxury item for the rich, sure, but they’re already starting to appear in affordable ways like the famed Roomba vacuum. Past that, AI-infused robots could help children, the elderly or the disabled with everyday tasks they may not be able to accomplish on their own. The trick is getting your insurance to cover a robot.

2. Improved Medical Care

AI programs and machinery can improve medical care in any number of ways, through advanced scanning, analysis and diagnosis of patients to AI-assisted robotic surgery, which is already being practiced throughout the world. But data analysis can be just as important as surgery, as AIs could look at a patient’s fine and predict their future health risks using that information alone. Doctors do this now, but the data could become more and more accurate through smarter AI assistance.

3. Taking on Dangerous and Boring Tasks

We’re already starting to see AI based robots take over menial tasks (like vacuuming) or dangerous tasks (like landmine disarming), but the possibilities for this kind of thing are endless if AIs continue to grow smarter and more capable. They will see an increased role on the assembly line, taking over more and more tasks still relegated to humans, and they could even end up stepping in to take over for historically dangerous jobs like mining and firefighting.

4. More Accurate Weather Prediction

As Artificial Intelligence continues to grow, so do its predictive abilities when it comes to things like weather forecasting. A smart AI program could be able to spot subtle weather patterns human meteorologists could miss, which could result in more accurate predictions improving the safety of those in the affected areas. This could also end up translating into better predictive abilities for crop planting and harvests, as the weather would be more easily forecasting by advanced AI algorithms.

5. Driverless Transport

By now you’ve seen the conceptual cars from Google and others that have automobiles driving around without a driver. Though they are still in the prototype phase, we should expect the technology to make it to market within the next decade or so. But driverless cars aren’t the only machines that could be controlled by AI to transport passengers safely. Advanced enough autopilot could make airline pilots obsolete, and the same could be true for trains and buses as well.

[Photo via Google]

6. Money Guarding

Wall St. already uses computer programs to predict stocks, but as the AI systems used get more and more advanced, they could safeguard against colossal disasters like the 2008 meltdown by predicting problems well before they occur. AI programs can also fight against consumer fraud by mapping profiles of spending habits, and lock down accounts when there are signs of danger. But relying too heavily on AI for financial monitoring could expose exploitable vulnerabilities as well, so it’s ground that needs to be tread on carefully.

7. Space Exploration

You may have seen a few pictures from the Mars Rover recently, as the machine actually has its own Twitter account in this day and age of social media, but AI could push the limits of space exploration far beyond what they are now. Manned missions are well and good, but costly, and limited by human biology. AI-only flights could end up providing us with the same data, if not more, with no risk to human astronauts. We wouldn’t get any historic “man on the moon” moments perhaps, but we would learn a whole lot we didn’t know before.

8. Fighting Pollution

Advancements in AI could end up actually saving the planet, rather than destroying it, as Skynet would have you believe. Artificial Intelligence can be used to create smart software that will limit pollution from industrial processes. Some software will allow AIs to distinguish between biological organisms and pollutants like hazardous waste. Small microbes will eat waste products and leave biological matter intact, which will help the ecosystem thrive.

9. Personal Safety

This one is likely to cause a lot of debate, but the NSAs advanced computer programs allow them to sift through countless phone and online communications to identify potential threats to the country. Naturally, this has drawn huge amounts of controversy, as the system often snoops through the lives of the innocent, in the name of the “greater good.” On a more personal level, however, AI security systems can help protect individual homes by distinguishing between intruders and occupants.

10. Robo-humans

If you think we’re getting too farfetched here, you’re wrong. While “cyborgs” of sci-fi might be impossible, there are variations of the concept that certainly aren’t. Already we have amputee patients being helped with mind-controlled robotic limbs, but eventually we may shift to true “transhumanism” where people upgrade themselves with AI-assisted aspects to improve their motor skills, intelligence and more. Needless to say, it’s an ethical grey area, but it’s an issue we may have to face in the not-too-distant future.

[Photo via NASA]

Written by Paul

Paul lives in New York with his beautiful and supportive wife. He writes for Forbes and his work also appears on IGN, The Daily Dot, Unreality Magazine, TVOvermind and more. It's a slow day if he's written less than 10,000 words.