Researchers: Artificial Intelligence is dumber than a 5-year-old and no smarter than a rat | TechStartups.com - TechStartups Team

We’ve all heard or read about how robots are going to take away our jobs. Saudi Arabia even went as far as granting citizenship to “Sophia the robot” back in October (See the video below).

Robot Sophia speaks at Saudi Arabia's Future Investment Initiative 


With crytocurrency at the top of daily headlines, 2017 may be remembered as the year artificial intelligence (AI, pronounced AYE-EYE) goes mainstream with more organizations adopting AI than ever. Two weeks ago, we wrote about Professor Geoffrey Hinton, known worldwide as the Godfather of AI, and how his research work in the area of Neuro Net was used in speech recognition and Android voice search. Yes, we’ve made a lot of progress since AI started as an academic discipline in 1956. However, AI still has a long way to go.

Over the years, AI has experienced several waves of optimism but it was also followed by series of unmet expectations, slow progress and disappointment. The disappointment comes from AI hypes. You can read more about AI marketing hypes. So what is AI? AI is the process of simulating human intelligence using machines, especially computer systems. The process includes learning (the acquisition of information and rules for using the information), reasoning (using the rules to reach approximate or definite conclusions), and self-correction. AI has many applications, including expert systems, speech recognition, machine vision and cancer research. AI use cases span could be used in any areas where automation and deep learning is needed...

In an article titled: “Stanford-led artificial intelligence index tracks emerging field,” emeritus professor Yoav Shoham said “In many ways, we are flying blind in our discussions about artificial Intelligence and lack the data we need to credibly evaluate activity.” “AI has made truly amazing strides in the past decade,” Shoham said, “but computers still can’t exhibit the common sense or the general intelligence of even a 5-year-old.” The report went on to say:

In terms of human-level performance, the AI Index suggests that in some ways AI has already arrived. This is true in game-playing applications including chess, the Jeopardy! game show and, most recently, the game of Go. Nonetheless, the authors note that computers continue to lag considerably in the ability to generalize specific information into deeper meaning.

Professor Shoham is not alone. Raymond Perrault, a scientist at SRI International, told the New York Times, “The public thinks we know how to do far more than we do now.”  Facebook’s head of AI, Yann LeCun, said, “our most advanced AI systems are dumber than a rat.” Another article warns of AI’s magical promises, as seen in IBM Watson’s underwhelming cancer play. Conner Forrest, the author of the article said, “AI could still “bring about massive change in many industries, but it is still in its infancy and business leaders need to see through the marketing hype.” Overall, AI is trending in the right direction but this is still a long way to go.
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Source: TechStartups.com (blog) and Arab News Channel (YouTube)