You heard it on the news. You read it both online and offline: AI is dangerous, and it can bring the destruction of humankind. We should never allow AI in our lives. Well, if you think this can be avoided, think again. AI is already here and has been around us for years in our everyday lives.
Here are the best examples of AI in our lives so far.
Household items
Perhaps the best example of this is robotic vacuum cleaners. The AI in such devices is trained to detect obstacles and find a way around them.
The same idea is behind automatic lawnmowers, and even though they’re less spectacular, AI is also present in devices like automatic garden sprinklers and pet feeders.
Refrigerators that check your stock and give a warning or even recommend items are also a good example of how advanced AI can be, and offer solutions for everyday life.
AI in Online shopping
Online e-commerce shops are packed with AI features. To start with, chatbots are trained to understand your sentences and provide coherent answers, and some of them do it spectacularly well.
That’s not all. Have you noticed that some sites recommend you purchase things based on your purchasing and browsing history? That’s AI too.
There are other AI-specific tasks related to online shopping that aren’t so visible. These include predictive models for demand, and price trends and also to detect suspicious account activity.
Self-driving cars
Flying cars are sadly not among us still, but at least we’re starting to have self-driving cars.
This is achieved by using sensors that help the car understand the environment surrounding it.
The AI is later trained on how to proceed in each situation. Afterward, the AI is capable of predicting outcomes and choosing the best possible course of action.
In the more distant future, cars are even expected to communicate with each other, reducing accidents and traffic jams.
Video games
Perhaps one of the best examples of AI happens in video games. This is because most people think about futuristic concepts when conjuring that word but in video games, it’s as natural as gaming itself.
For an advanced-AI example, let’s take Cyberpunk 2077. This game’s characters were entirely created by AI. The software was trained with millions of data, including facial muscle movements, to create virtual humans indistinguishable from real ones.
But it’s not necessary to go that far: AI in video games is almost as old as the games themselves. For instance, in old strategy games like Age of Empires, the AI enemies react to your actions and are capable of mounting attacks on their own.
Summing up AI in our lives
AI is a powerful tool and, as with everything else, it can be used and abused. Fears aside, it helps to make our lives easier and even more entertaining. Hopefully, this technology will always be used to improve our lives, but even if it doesn’t, you can always pull the plug on your killer robot.
