Top Artificial Intelligence Technologies-Past, Present & Future

With significant growth in investments in Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology, its advancement has never been better. It all began decades ago. Here's a timeline of some crucial points in the history of AI.

A Brief History of AI – The Past

The Present

Although AI is not new, a broad set of powerful technologies are emerging under it – Robotics, Deep Learning, Reinforcement Learning and Facial Recognition are just a few to count. With the past in account, we can summarise a list of top AI tech that is currently ruling the industry –

•  Natural Language Processing – The use of text analytics is growing with every new model of tech nowadays. NLP is a branch of computer science and AI that works on the machine's ability to understand human language – on understanding the sentence structure, its meaning, sentiment and the intent behind it.

ServiceNow, a platform to automate business processes across enterprises, has recently acquired Parlo for their NLP tech – to bring NLP and understanding into enterprise systems. "We are rapidly moving away from structured data such as filling in forms and data fields, towards unstructured interactions with machines such as free-form text, voice and gestures", was stated by Pat Casey, ServiceNow's senior vice president of DevOps.

•  Robotic Process Automation – Robotics has given rise to an AI boom around the globe. RPA is steadily replacing human interactions with software. With RPA software, varied tasks of transactions, logging in, query solving, complex calculations, logging out, etc. can be carried out with fewer errors at a much faster rate.

As per UST Global, RPA also has its possibilities for implementation in HR services, Finance & Accounting Services. Blue Prism, a UK multinational software corporation pioneering in RPA software, has committed to businesses to free up their best people to really be their best people.

•  Biometrics – In computer science, biometrics works to identify and authenticate people based on their physical characteristics, body language and interactions with the tech. As per Gemalto – an international digital security company – biometrics is the most pertinent means of identifying and authenticating individuals in 2018. Biometrics is not limited to image and speech recognition.

•  Neural Networks – Artificial Neural Network (ANN) programming is inspired by the way the human brain works with its extensive interconnecting neurons. ANN comes under Deep Learning technology with Machine Learning (ML) as its parent domain. In 1989, Carnegie Mellon University representatives developed the first autonomous vehicle using neural networks. And as we are now learning how to simulate the brain, we are getting closer to actually understand how the brain really works. A study in ANN facilitates progress in Neuroscience – As we develop AI, we develop our understanding of ourselves.

•  Machine Learning & its Platforms – Since we're already talking about Deep Learning under ML, let us dive deeper into its parent domain. At its core, Machine Learning is simply a way of achieving AI. It is the ability of a machine to learn without being explicitly coded. Machine Learning, an application of AI, has given us self-driving cars, dynamic web search, meticulous image processing. Some commonly used ML platforms are Microsoft Azure, Apache Spark ML, Scikit Learn and IBM's SPSS (Statistical Package for Social Sciences).

•  Internet of Things – As most of you are already aware, IoT is a global network of computers, sensors and actuators connected through Internet protocols. A basic example is when a computer communicates with a device (attached to a sensor) over the internet. AI and IoT are intertwined concepts. If AI is the Brain then IoT is the Body with sensors. IoT makes AI better taking in raw data at real time.

The Future

The impact of AI is going to be profound in coming years. All aforementioned technologies are not even close to being obsolete and each of them is pioneering AI's progress. As I mentioned earlier, Artificial Intelligence isn't new, but its advances are moving at an exponential and unprecedented pace. Bigger breakthroughs are just around the corner. Back in 1951, the First AI-based program was written and 65 years later, in 2016, the Tech industry achieved a landmark event with AlphaGo's victory in defeating world champion Lee Sedol (by deep reinforcement learning) in the complex Chinese board game of Go. We've come a long way, but something tells me we still have a long way to go.