Advantages and Disadvantages of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Introduction to Artificial Intelligence: 

Before we check out the Advantages and Disadvantages of AI, let’s have a look at what Artificial Intelligence is all about.

So there are many ways to explain what AI is but the simplest version would be: Artificial Intelligence is one of the major branches of Computer Science where we basically make machines to mimic the way humans think and process information. Basically, we are giving the machine the ability to think like us or you could say the machine will be able to replicate a human brain function or at least that’s what it tries to do. 

An AI can do certain tasks that a human brain might struggle with sometimes due to emotions or in general the human factor. But let’s be clear, AI will not be a complete replacement for human beings and just like us, they are not perfect in everything. However, they do have a similar feature which we have and it’s called ‘Learning’. So if there is anything that an AI cannot do or is struggling to do, it tries to learn and eventually it will be able to perform the task, sometimes even better than humans. So we could say it has the ability to learn from its mistakes and then correct them automatically just like how we do it. 

One of the best examples would be languages. Let’s say you travel to France but you don’t know the language, so what do you do? Obviously, we have technology in our hands in the form of smartphones so we would use Google Translate but it’s not very convenient to open google translate each and every time so in the end, you will have to learn the language from the beginning. So we learn step by step and we obviously will make mistakes initially but eventually, we will be able to get the hang of the language. So something similar happens with AI. The machine also tries to learn things which it cannot do, and just like how we learn new things from previously available data, even AI learns from past data and gets better over time. 

Refer to the article to know: What is a Gradient Descent?

So Artificial Intelligence has different subsets and some of the most widely used ones are:

1. Machine Learning
2. Natural Language Processing
3. Deep Learning

There are many applications of AI these days. Let’s look at some of the areas where it’s most common.

• Language Translators (Google Translate)
• Facial Recognition Technology
• Self-Driving Vehicles
• Computer Games
• Robotics
• AI assistant (Siri, Google, Alexa)

Now let’s look at some of the Merits and Demerits of Artificial Intelligence.

Read this article: Exploratory Data Analysis

Advantages:

• One of the major advantages of AI is speed, accuracy and efficiency and it can actually reduce the errors made by humans in certain situations.

• There are situations where humans might hesitate to work because of some kind of life risky situations for example in nuclear testing, weapons industries and automobiles. This is where AI is used and we can eliminate the risk factor by using robots in areas where it might be difficult for humans to work. 

• An AI can be deployed and will keep working day and night without any decrease in performance unlike humans who cannot work all day and need some rest but an AI can work 24/7 and still not get tired. For example in customer support these days companies use bots to clear common queries by the customers, those bots will be active all day and will always respond to every query almost immediately.

• AI can be very useful in the banking domain where it can replace the traditional system of processing customer documents manually which would obviously take a lot of time. Also, there are chances of mistakes which can be very impactful when it comes to banking-related tasks. For example, these days loan applications are getting processed by AI Algorithms thereby speeding up the process of the loan application. There are algorithms that are developed which can predict if the applicant is eligible for a loan or not by looking at his background. 

• AI machines can turn decision-making into a very fast and efficient process in an organization by combining different technology with AI to get results much faster than humans and thereby allowing the companies to make decisions much faster and take action quickly. 

Refer this article: Introduction to Boxplots

Disadvantages:

• The cost of developing and maintaining AI systems can be very expensive as the technology is very advanced and the machines are very complex, moreover to develop these systems we need very highly qualified and experienced professionals who are very hard to find these days as AI is not that easy to learn and requires years of training and experience. 

• AI is now replacing humans in many areas which can eventually increase the unemployment rate in the country and can be a big issue for the economy. 

• There are certain domains where we require human intervention in the form of human emotions. For example in the Medical field where a lot of treatments are now being done with the help of AI machines but sometimes we need that human factor in the medical field as AI machines have no emotions at all. So they cannot be used for each and every treatment as some require the experience and knowledge of the doctors. So in short we can say that AI will never replace the doctors in this world. 

• The AI Machines are designed to perform tasks that they are developed to do originally but if there is any irregularity in data then they tend to underperform as they do not expect these things to happen and they are not ready for it. This is where humans are better than machines as we are ready for every scenario and have alternate options ready but machines are not capable of doing that. So we can say AI is not very reliable when there are unexpected scenarios that can happen at anytime.

Also refer to the article: Various types of Sampling Techniques with examples

So to summarize, Artificial Intelligence has its benefits but it also comes with a likelihood of danger. However there is absolutely no doubt that AI  has a very bright future in all domains, but we have to know its limits and also the risks that come along with it. So it’s our responsibility that we do not rely too much on AI for all the work specially in fields where the margin of error is extremely low. So the wise choice would be to only use them when necessary and in situations where they can help us do the work faster and with minimal errors!

Being a prominent data science institute, DataMites provides specialized training in topics including machine learning, deep learning, Python course, the internet of things. Our artificial intelligence at DataMites have been authorized by the International Association for Business Analytics Certification (IABAC), a body with a strong reputation and high appreciation in the analytics field.

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