There's no doubt that Artificial intelligence (AI) will play a big role in humanity's future; perhaps even more than Personal Computing has previously.
THE PAST
Reading Bill Gates' and Steve Jobs' respective biographies, you can sense how the world was then, and how these two men perceived it and saw it through the lenses of their different individual brilliance. One saw the potential of putting this device (the personal Computer) which was accessible then to only companies, in every home; while the other looked into the user and his wants, and invented something that the user will not only need but desire.
Their competition brought the best out of both of them, made them friends, before bringing them at loggerheads; because they viewed computers in different ways.
Jobs, the salesman saw The computer as a hardware component you can sell, while Gates saw it as more software than hardware. The way either man thought of the computer, influenced the growth of their companies and ignited their feud.
Today, Microsoft is still a software company, seldom going into hardware, while Apple is known for its ability to personalize devices and give users a unique experience.
After the exponential growth that the world experienced in access to computing devices, a need to connect these devices arose. The internet came into existence, and because a connected world naturally calls for more ease of access, Computing devices shrank in size, and with them their components; leading to smaller Computers and then Smart Phones.
This began the slow move away from personal computing in the form of the PC.
While computing devices gained the ability to communicate with each other regardless of distance, a need to consolidate available talent arose because the few companies that existed then saw that harnessing the intelligence and talent scattered all over the developed world was the way forward.
Jobs and Gates thrived previously because of their abilities to see things uniquely in their own ways, the challenge for the next generation of technologists after them, slowly moved away from "what to come up with" to "talents to harness"- basically, a "Networked intelligence" of people.
Over the years, added to the scarcity of talent, Moore's law kept evolving the technology arena, by doubling the number of transistors in integrated circuits; while halving the price of these components required to build new technologies; ultimately, this ensured that the barriers to entry were lowered every two years, opening the industry further to new players, new thinkers and new ideas.
In the coming years, the "networked intelligence age", loosely referred to as "When the dot com bubble was about to explode" started.
Notable names around that time include a Reinvigorated Steve Jobs, fresh off his sabbatical at NEXT; back at Apple, aiming to tap into opportunities afforded to him by the dot com bubble and the cult-like following he was beginning to command among tech enthusiasts.
Furthermore, there were Sergey Brin and Larry Page, who co-founded Google (Today, a child-company of the larger Alphabet), Jeff Bezos, who started Amazon, Elon Musk, who was part of the team that revolutionized online banking (Paypal), and today is a giant in the reusable energy, Automobile, and Space industries.
THE PRESENT
A latter-day success, Mark Zuckerberg, found himself in an age when the dot com bubble had well taken off. He combined his brilliance and ability to spot talent, with a penchant for learning; to grow as technology matured. Being quite young and with the swagger associated with "hacker culture", Zuckerberg not only revolutionized social media, he started a company that offered flexibility to its employees, something Tech professionals appreciate.
Bill Gates retired and Steve Jobs died, leaving their giant creations- Microsoft and Apple in the hands of their proteges.
With most of the world on the internet in the 2010s, tech companies could relax with the scramble for talents. The internet has spread the art of software development and IT beyond North America, Europe, and Asia; and companies can now focus on making their products and services stand out.
Jeff Bezos and his team at Amazon sought to understand the customer so that they can sell everything to him, in the process bettering Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and eCommerce; Google diversified into research with their X division, which engages in research and development; Facebook kept their learning culture going, evolving their technology to better provide their services, while Elon Musk was busy with Tesla, SpaceX, Open AI etc.
While each company's services improved to better serve customers, they made a lot of money and their talent streams kept on being flooded with fresh talents to bring new ideas.
New breakthroughs by Google's Deepmind, IBM's Watson and Microsoft's AI and many other Machine Learning (ML) research opened new frontiers.
Suddenly, Machine Learning (ML) opened up a possibility, one which had the potential to save companies a lot of effort and offer users a lot of better service.
Rather than banking only on mobile and web applications, Amazon also invested a lot in research and development, and struck gold with Alexa, their virtual assistant that relied on their machine learning and CRM infrastructure; they also came up with their smart speaker and Ecosystem among other things. Apple followed the same way with Apple home and Siri, Google with Google Talk and Microsoft with Cortana.
Facebook also started playing with ML. Their appeal and ability to basically poach talents from other companies afforded them the chance to hire professionals in ML and Virtual Reality (VR), and set up divisions for ML and VR research. Their exploits with ML helped to make the Facebook app smarter and tailored to each user's individual need.
The "Newsfeed" on Facebook was improved to tailor everything, from posts to people, according to how often users interacted with them. We simply woke up one day to find that our Walls were always filled with posts by people that always interested us. Unbeknownst to us (some of us), Machine learning was at play. Facebook also applied ML to Instagram, making it smarter and slicker. In fact, Facebook's ML division came up with a package that other departments who are not conversant with ML can use. This ensured that Facebook was littered with Machine learning; from search to inbox to Friend Suggestions.
Google also used ML to make their suggestions smarter. A good example is how eerily accurate their suggestions have become.
Try first searching for say "Game of Thrones", then type the first letter of something (A Character, A place, etc.) from Game of Thrones; more often than not, Google will suggest what you intended to search for, and this is not just AJAX or any similar library we use to retrieve data from ordinary databases; this is Machine learning. This moved Google closer to its dream of making information available to people before they even make a search. This is just one aspect. The entire google eco system is also littered with ML.
THE FUTURE
These exploits and more with Machine learning, Cloud Computing, and Virtual Reality, are slowly heralding us into the Artificial intelligence(AI) age: an age when machines will achieve a degree of intelligence, independent from humans and their input.
When you combine Machine learning, Computer vision, Virtual reality, Artificial Intelligence, and Automation, what do you have?
You have an age when machines will usurp humans at top of the Blockchain (sorry food chain, wink); what does that mean for us?
On one hand, you can think of autonomous vehicles, better medical diagnosis, more efficient manufacturing, better and faster research with the aid of machines, Mind blowing games, tailored advertisements, AI friends etc. The potentials are unimaginable.
But on the other hand, we have philosophical questions to ask, we have moral and ethical questions to ask, heck! We'll even have religious questions to ask. There's also Hollywood, which has made a fortune from scaring us about Artificial intelligence.
No wonder the AI discussion has always stirred controversy.
While Ray Kurzweil, a Google executive has Mesmerized us with "what a symbiosis between humans and machines" can do for both humans and machines, Elon Musk and Stephen Hawking have warned of the great dangers of Artificial intelligence.
What do you think of AI?
This is an introductory article about Artificial intelligence. I have tried to limit it to a few examples and scenarios. The Topic will be explored further in subsequent articles.