Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI), the ability of a digital computer or computer-controlled robot to

perform tasks commonly associated with intelligent beings. The term is frequently applied to
the project of developing systems endowed with the intellectual processes characteristic of
humans, such as the ability to reason, discover meaning, generalize, or learn from past
experience. Since their development in the 1940s, digital computers have been programmed
to carry out very complex tasks—such as discovering proofs for mathematical theorems or
playing chess—with great proficiency. Despite continuing advances in computer processing
speed and memory capacity, there are as yet no programs that can match full human
flexibility over wider domains or in tasks requiring much everyday knowledge. On the other
hand, some programs have attained the performance levels of human experts and
professionals in executing certain specific tasks, so that artificial intelligence in this limited
sense is found in applications as diverse as medical diagnosis, computer search engines, voice
or handwriting recognition, and chatbots.

(Read the future of “Nonbiological Man.”)

What is intelligence?
All but the simplest human behavior is ascribed to intelligence, while even the most
complicated insect behavior is usually not taken as an indication of intelligence. What is the
difference? Consider the behavior of the digger wasp, Sphex ichneumoneus. When the female
wasp returns to her burrow with food, she first deposits it on the threshold, checks for
intruders inside her burrow, and only then, if the coast is clear, carries her food inside. The
real nature of the wasp’s instinctual behavior is revealed if the food is moved a few inches
away from the entrance to her burrow while she is inside: on emerging, she will repeat the
whole procedure as often as the food is displaced. Intelligence—conspicuously absent in the
case of the wasp—must include the ability to adapt to new circumstances.

(Read the future of “Nonconscious Man.”)

Psychologists generally characterize human intelligence not by just one trait but by the
combination of many diverse abilities. Research in AI has focused chiefly on the following
components of intelligence: learning, reasoning, problem solving, perception, and using
language.
Learning
There are a number of different forms of learning as applied to artificial intelligence. The
simplest is learning by trial and error. For example, a simple computer program for solving
mate-in-one chess problems might try moves at random until mate is found. The program
might then store the solution with the position so that, the next time the computer
encountered the same position, it would recall the solution. This simple memorizing of
individual items and procedures—known as rote learning—is relatively easy to implement on
a computer. More challenging is the problem of implementing what is called generalization.
Generalization involves applying past experience to analogous new situations. For example, a
program that learns the past tense of regular English verbs by rote will not be able to produce
the past tense of a word such as jump unless the program was previously presented with
jumped, whereas a program that is able to generalize can learn the “add -ed” rule for regular
verbs ending in a consonant and so form the past tense of jump on the basis of experience
with similar verbs.

Reasoning
To reason is to draw inferences appropriate to the situation. Inferences are classified as either
deductive or inductive. An example of the former is, “Fred must be in either the museum or
the café. He is not in the café; therefore, he is in the museum,” and of the latter is, “Previous
accidents of this sort were caused by instrument failure. This accident is of the same sort;
therefore, it was likely caused by instrument failure.” The most significant difference between
these forms of reasoning is that in the deductive case, the truth of the premises guarantees the
truth of the conclusion, whereas in the inductive case, the truth of the premises lends support
to the conclusion without giving absolute assurance. Inductive reasoning is common in
science, where data are collected and tentative models are developed to describe and predict
future behavior—until the appearance of anomalous data forces the model to be revised.
Deductive reasoning is common in mathematics and logic, where elaborate structures of
irrefutable theorems are built up from a small set of basic axioms and rules.

There has been considerable success in programming computers to draw inferences.

However, true reasoning involves more than just drawing inferences: it involves drawing
inferences relevant to the solution of the particular problem. This is one of the hardest
problems confronting AI.
Problem solving
Problem solving, particularly in artificial intelligence, may be characterized as a systematic
search through a range of possible actions in order to reach some predefined goal or solution.
Problem-solving methods divide into special purpose and general purpose. A special-purpose
method is tailor-made for a particular problem and often exploits very specific features of the
situation in which the problem is embedded. In contrast, a general-purpose method is
applicable to a wide variety of problems. One general-purpose technique used in AI is means-
end analysis—a step-by-step, or incremental, reduction of the difference between the current
state and the final goal. The program selects actions from a list of means—in the case of a
simple robot, this might consist of PICKUP, PUTDOWN, MOVEFORWARD,
MOVEBACK, MOVELEFT, and MOVERIGHT—until the goal is reached.
Many diverse problems have been solved by artificial intelligence programs. Some examples
are finding the winning move (or sequence of moves) in a board game, devising mathematical
proofs, and manipulating “virtual objects” in a computer-generated world.

Perception
In perception the environment is scanned by means of various sensory organs, real or
artificial, and the scene is decomposed into separate objects in various spatial relationships.
Analysis is complicated by the fact that an object may appear different depending on the
angle from which it is viewed, the direction and intensity of illumination in the scene, and
how much the object contrasts with the surrounding field. At present, artificial perception is
sufficiently advanced to enable optical sensors to identify individuals and enable autonomous
vehicles to drive at moderate speeds on the open road.

Language
A language is a system of signs having meaning by convention. In this sense, language need
not be confined to the spoken word. Traffic signs, for example, form a mini-language, it being
a matter of convention that ⚠ means “hazard ahead” in some countries. It is distinctive of
languages that linguistic units possess meaning by convention, and linguistic meaning is very
different from what is called natural meaning, exemplified in statements such as “Those
clouds mean rain” and “The fall in pressure means the valve is malfunctioning.”
An important characteristic of full-fledged human languages—in contrast to birdcalls and
traffic signs—is their productivity. A productive language can formulate an unlimited variety
of sentences.
Large language models like ChatGPT can respond fluently in a human language to questions
and statements. Although such models do not actually understand language as humans do but
merely select words that are more probable than others, they have reached the point where
their command of a language is indistinguishable from that of a normal human. What, then, is
involved in genuine understanding, if even a computer that uses language like a native human
speaker is not acknowledged to understand? There is no universally agreed upon answer to
this difficult question.

Methods and goals in AI

Symbolic vs. connectionist approaches

AI research follows two distinct, and to some extent competing, methods, the symbolic (or
“top-down”) approach, and the connectionist (or “bottom-up”) approach. The top-down
approach seeks to replicate intelligence by analyzing cognition independent of the biological
structure of the brain, in terms of the processing of symbols—whence the symbolic label. The
bottom-up approach, on the other hand, involves creating artificial neural networks in
imitation of the brain’s structure—whence the connectionist label.
To illustrate the difference between these approaches, consider the task of building a system,
equipped with an optical scanner, that recognizes the letters of the alphabet. A bottom-up
approach typically involves training an artificial neural network by presenting letters to it one
by one, gradually improving performance by “tuning” the network. (Tuning adjusts the
responsiveness of different neural pathways to different stimuli.) In contrast, a top-down
approach typically involves writing a computer program that compares each letter with
geometric descriptions. Simply put, neural activities are the basis of the bottom-up approach,
while symbolic descriptions are the basis of the top-down approach.
In The Fundamentals of Learning (1932), Edward Thorndike, a psychologist at Columbia
University, New York City, first suggested that human learning consists of some unknown
property of connections between neurons in the brain. In The Organization of Behavior
(1949), Donald Hebb, a psychologist at McGill University, Montreal, suggested that learning
specifically involves strengthening certain patterns of neural activity by increasing the
probability (weight) of induced neuron firing between the associated connections.

In 1957 two vigorous advocates of symbolic AI—Allen Newell, a researcher at the RAND
Corporation, Santa Monica, California, and Herbert Simon, a psychologist and computer
scientist at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh—summed up the top-down approach in
what they called the physical symbol system hypothesis. This hypothesis states that
processing structures of symbols is sufficient, in principle, to produce artificial intelligence in
a digital computer and that, moreover, human intelligence is the result of the same type of
symbolic manipulations.

During the 1950s and ’60s the top-down and bottom-up approaches were pursued
simultaneously, and both achieved noteworthy, if limited, results. During the 1970s, however,
bottom-up AI was neglected, and it was not until the 1980s that this approach again became
prominent. Nowadays both approaches are followed, and both are acknowledged as facing
difficulties. Symbolic techniques work in simplified realms but typically break down when
confronted with the real world; meanwhile, bottom-up researchers have been unable to
replicate the nervous systems of even the simplest living things. Caenorhabditis elegans, a
much-studied worm, has approximately 300 neurons whose pattern of interconnections is
perfectly known. Yet connectionist models have failed to mimic even this worm. Evidently,
the neurons of connectionist theory are gross oversimplifications of the real thing.

Artificial general intelligence (AGI), applied AI, and cognitive simulation

Employing the methods outlined above, AI research attempts to reach one of three goals:
artificial general intelligence (AGI), applied AI, or cognitive simulation. AGI (also called
strong AI) aims to build machines that think. The ultimate ambition of AGI is to produce a
machine whose overall intellectual ability is indistinguishable from that of a human being’s.
To date, progress has been uneven. Despite advances in large-language models, it is debatable
whether AGI can emerge from even more powerful models or if a completely different
approach is needed. Indeed, some researchers working in AI’s other two branches view AGI
as not worth pursuing.
Applied AI, also known as advanced information processing, aims to produce commercially
viable “smart” systems—for example, “expert” medical diagnosis systems and stock-trading
systems. Applied AI has enjoyed considerable success.

In cognitive simulation, computers are used to test theories about how the human mind works
—for example, theories about how people recognize faces or recall memories. Cognitive
simulation is already a powerful tool in both neuroscience and cognitive psychology.
Artificial intelligence has made significant strides in a wide variety of industries. Systems that
mimic similar behaviors and characteristics found in human intelligence can learn, reason,
and understand tasks to take action.
It’s important to understand the different concepts in artificial intelligence that help solve real-
world problems. This can be done by implementing processes and techniques like machine
learning, which is a branch of artificial intelligence.
In this article, we’ll go over the main branches of artificial intelligence, such as:

 Computer vision
 Fuzzy logic
 Expert systems
 Robotics
 Machine learning
 Neural networks/deep learning
 Natural language processing

What are the basic components of AI?

Before diving into the various elements of artificial intelligence, it's important to clarify what
AI encompasses. Artificial intelligence involves a machine's capability to process, synthesize,
and deduce information, subsequently executing cognitive tasks typically associated with
human intellect.
Now, let's explore the innovations in AI developed by engineers and scientists that shape the
technology we utilize today.

Learning
A key aspect of AI is learning, which allows AI systems to assimilate data and enhance their
functions autonomously, without direct human coding. AI technologies improve through data
annotation, pattern recognition, and feedback reinforcement, often through rewards or
penalties, where penalties are negative consequences linked to unwanted outcomes or actions.
Example: Systems like Siri or Alexa refine their grasp of correct grammar and language
structure through continuous learning.

Reasoning and decision-making

Reasoning and decision-making form another vital component of AI. These systems employ
logical rules, probabilistic models, and algorithms to derive conclusions and make decisions
based on inference.
AI models are designed to apply reasoning to yield reliable outcomes when confronted with
challenges.
Example: Tools such as Grammarly decide when to insert commas and other punctuation
marks appropriately.

Problem-solving
Closely related to reasoning and decision-making, problem-solving in AI involves processing
data, manipulating it, and applying it to devise solutions for specific issues.
Example: In chess, AI analyzes the opponent’s moves and strategizes the optimal response
based on the game’s rules and anticipated future scenarios.

Perception
The final key component of AI, perception, pertains to the technology's use of real or
simulated sensory organs. AI systems interpret data to identify objects and comprehend their
physical relationships (e.g., distance) to these entities. This process typically includes tasks
like image recognition, object detection, image segmentation, and video analysis.
Example: Autonomous vehicles, such as those equipped with Tesla’s navigational technology,
process visual data to detect roads, lanes, and obstacles, integrating these elements into a
coherent map.

The top 7 branches of artificial intelligence

1. Computer vision
One of the most popular branches of artificial intelligence right now, computer vision, aims to
develop techniques that assist computers in seeing and understanding digital images and
videos.
Applying machine learning models to images allows computers to identify objects, faces,
people, animals, and more. Algorithmic models help computers teach themselves about visual
data’s contexts, and with enough data fed through a model, computers can teach themselves
to distinguish one image from another.

A convolutional neural network works alongside a model to break images down into pixels,
giving them tags or labels. The neural network then uses the labels to conduct convolutions,
which is a mathematical operation on two functions to produce a third function and make
predictions about what it sees.
Computer vision has applications across industries, such as:
 Object tracking. Following or tracking detected objects.
  Image classification. An image is classified and accurately predicted to belong to
certain classes.
 Facial recognition. Face unlock on smartphones unlocks devices by mapping and
matching facial features.

2. Fuzzy Logic
Fuzzy logic is a technique that helps to solve issues or statements that can either be true or
false. This method copies human decisions by considering all existing possibilities between
digital values of ‘yes’ and ‘no’. Put simply, it measures the degree to which a hypothesis is
correct.
You’d use this branch of artificial intelligence to reason about uncertain topics. It’s a
convenient and flexible way of implementing machine learning techniques and copying
human thought logically.

Fuzzy logic’s architecture is composed of four parts:

 Rule base. Has all the rules and if-then conditions.
 Fuzzification. Helps to convert inputs.
 Inference engine. Determines the degree of match between rules and fuzzy inputs.
 Defuzzification. Converts fuzzy sets into crips values.
Companies like Nissan use fuzzy logic to control breaks in dangerous situations, which
depend on individual car acceleration, speed, and wheel speed.

3. Expert systems
An expert system is a program specializing in a singular task, just like a human expert. These
systems are mainly designed to solve intricate problems with human-like decision-making
capabilities.
They use a set of rules, called inference rules, that a knowledge base fed by data defines for
them. By using if-then logical notions, they can solve complex issues and help in information
management, virus detection, loan analysis, and more.

The first expert system was developed in the 1970s, and greatly contributed to the success of
artificial intelligence. An example of an expert system is CaDeT, a diagnostic support system
that can help medical professionals by detecting cancer in its early stages.
4. Robotics
Robots are programmed machines that can automatically carry out complex series of actions.
People control them with external devices, or their control systems can be embedded within
themselves.
Robots help humans with tedious and repetitive tasks. AI-powered robots, in particular, can
help companies like NASA in space exploration. Humanoid robots are the latest
developments and better-known examples of robotic evolution.

Sophia, a robot developed by Hanson Robotics, works through a combination of artificial

intelligence and neural networks. She recognizes human faces and understands emotions and
gestures – and can even interact with people.
Common examples of robotics in everyday life applications include industries like
manufacturing, healthcare, retail, and more.

5. Machine learning
Machine learning is the ability of machines to automatically learn from data and algorithms,
and is one of the more demanding branches of artificial intelligence. Machine learning
improves performance using past experiences and can make decisions without being
specifically programmed to do so.
The process starts with historical data collection, like instructions and direct experience, so
that logical models can be built for future inference. Output accuracy depends on data size –
a larger amount of data will build a better model, which in turn increases its accuracy.

Machine learning algorithms are classified into three types:

 Supervised learning. Machines are trained with labeled data to predict the outcome.
 Unsupervised learning. Machines are trained with unlabeled data, with the model
extracting information from the input to identify features and patterns, so it can
generate an outcome.
 Reinforcement learning. Machines learn through trial and error, using feedback to
form actions.

6. Neural networks/deep learning

Neural networks are also known as artificial neural networks (ANNs) or simulated neural
networks (SNNs). At the heart of deep learning algorithms, neural networks are inspired by
the human brain, and they copy how biological neurons signal to each other.
ANNs have node layers – consisting of an input layer, one or more hidden layers, and an
output layer. Each node, also called an artificial neuron, connects to other neurons and has an
associated threshold and weight.
When an individual node’s output is over a specified threshold value, the node is activated to
send data to the next network layer. Neural networks need training data to both learn and
improve accuracy.

7. Language processing
Natural language processing allows computers to understand both text and spoken words like
humans can. Combining machine learning, linguistics, and deep learning models, computers
can process human language in voice or text data to understand the full meaning, intent, and
sentiment.
In speech recognition or speech-to-text, for example, voice data is reliably converted to text
data. This can be challenging as people speak with varied intonations, emphasis, and accents.
Programmers have to teach computers natural language-driven applications so they can
understand and recognize data from the beginning.

Some natural language processing use cases are:

 Virtual chatbots. They can recognize contextual information to offer customers better
responses over time.
 Spam detection. Natural language processing text classification can scan language in
emails to detect phishing or spam.
 Sentiment analysis. Analyzing language used in social media platforms helps to
extract emotions and attitudes about products.

AI technology
In the early 21st century faster processing power and larger datasets (“big data”) brought
artificial intelligence out of computer science departments and into the wider world. Moore’s
law, the observation that computing power doubled roughly every 18 months, continued to
hold true. The stock responses of the early chatbot Eliza fit comfortably within 50 kilobytes;
the language model at the heart of ChatGPT was trained on 45 terabytes of text.
Machine learning
The ability of neural networks to take on added layers and thus work on more-complex
problems increased in 2006 with the invention of the “greedy layer-wise pretraining”
technique, in which it was found that it was easier to train each layer of a neural network
individually than to train the whole network from input to output. This improvement in
neural network training led to a type of machine learning called “deep learning,” in which
neural networks have four or more layers, including the initial input and the final output.
Moreover, such networks are able to learn unsupervised—that is, to discover features in data
without initial prompting.
Among the achievements of deep learning have been advances in image classification in
which specialized neural networks called convolution neural networks (CNNs) are trained on
features found in a set of images of many different types of objects. The CNN is then able to
take an input image, compare it with features in images in its training set, and classify the
image as being of, for example, a cat or an apple. One such network, PReLU-net by Kaiming
He and collaborators at Microsoft Research, has classified images even better than a human
did.

Garry Kasparov and Deep Blue

World chess champion Garry Kasparov playing against Deep Blue, the chess-playing
computer built by IBM. In 1996 Kasparov won the first match 4−2, but in 1997 he lost to
Deep Blue 3 ½−2 ½.
The achievement of Deep Blue in beating world chess champion Garry Kasparov was
surpassed by DeepMind’s AlphaGo, which mastered go, a much more complicated game than
chess. AlphaGo’s neural networks learned to play go from human players and by playing
itself. It defeated top go player Lee Sedol 4–1 in 2016. AlphaGo was in turn surpassed by
AlphaGo Zero, which, starting from only the rules of go, was eventually able to defeat
AlphaGo 100–0. A more general neural network, Alpha Zero, was able to use the same
techniques to quickly master chess and shogi.
Machine learning has found applications in many fields beyond gaming and image
classification. The pharmaceutical company Pfizer used the technique to quickly search
millions of possible compounds in developing the COVID-19 treatment Paxlovid. Google
uses machine learning to filter out spam from the inbox of Gmail users. Banks and credit card
companies use historical data to train models to detect fraudulent transactions.

TikTok account featuring a deepfake of Keanu Reeves

The “Unreal Keanu Reeves” TikTok account posts include relationship humor and dances.

Deepfakes are AI-generated media produced using two different deep-learning algorithms:
one that creates the best possible replica of a real image or video and another that detects
whether the replica is fake and, if it is, reports on the differences between it and the original.
The first algorithm produces a synthetic image and receives feedback on it from the second
algorithm; it then adjusts it to make it appear more real. The process is repeated until the
second algorithm does not detect any false imagery. Deepfake media portray images that do
not exist in reality or events that have never occurred. Widely circulated deepfakes include an
image of Pope Francis in a puffer jacket, an image of former U.S. president Donald Trump in
a scuffle with police officers, and a video of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg giving a speech
about his company’s nefarious power. Such events did not occur in real life.

Large language models and natural language processing

Natural language processing (NLP) involves analyzing how computers can process and parse
language similarly to the way humans do. To do this, NLP models must use computational
linguistics, statistics, machine learning, and deep-learning models. Early NLP models were
hand-coded and rule-based but did not account for exceptions and nuances in language.
Statistical NLP was the next step, using probability to assign the likelihood of certain
meanings to different parts of text. Modern NLP systems use deep-learning models and
techniques that help them to “learn” as they process information.

conversation with ChatGPT

Screenshot of a ChatGPT conversation created by Encyclopædia Britannica editor Erik
Gregersen. The conversation prompt was to write a 250-word encyclopaedia article about
ChatGPT.

Prominent examples of modern NLP are language models that use AI and statistics to predict
the final form of a sentence on the basis of existing portions. In large language model (LLM),
the word large refers to the parameters, or variables and weights, used by the model to
influence the prediction outcome. Although there is no definition for how many parameters
are needed, LLM training datasets range in size from 110 million parameters (Google’s
BERTbase model) to 340 billion parameters (Google’s PaLM 2 model). Large also refers to
the sheer amount of data used to train an LLM, which can be multiple petabytes in size and
contain trillions of tokens, which are the basic units of text or code, usually a few characters
long, that are processed by the model.
One popular language model was GPT-3, released by OpenAI in June 2020. One of the first
LLMs, GPT-3 could solve high-school-level math problems as well as create computer
programs. GPT-3 was the foundation of ChatGPT software, released in November 2022.
ChatGPT almost immediately disturbed academics, journalists, and others because of concern
that it was impossible to distinguish human writing from ChatGPT-generated writing.

A flurry of LLMs and chatbots based on them followed in ChatGPT’s wake. Microsoft added
the chatbot Copilot in 2023 to its Windows 11 operating system, its Bing search engine, and
its Edge browser. That same year, Google released a chatbot, Bard (later Gemini), and in
2024, the company announced that “AI Overviews” of subjects would appear at the top of
search results.
One issue with LLMs is “hallucinations”: rather than communicating to a user that it does not
know something, the model responds with probable but inaccurate text based on the user’s
prompts. This issue may be partially attributed to using LLMs as search engines rather than in
their intended role as text generators. One method to combat hallucinations is known as
prompt engineering, whereby engineers design prompts that aim to extract the optimal output
from the model. For example, one such prompt style is chain-of-thought, in which the initial
prompt contains both an example question and a carefully worked out answer to show the
LLM how to proceed.

Other examples of machines using NLP are voice-operated GPS systems, customer service
chatbots, and language translation programs. In addition, businesses use NLP to enhance
understanding of and service to consumers by auto-completing search queries and monitoring
social media.
Programs such as OpenAI’s DALL-E, Stable Diffusion, and Midjourney use NLP to create
images based on textual prompts, which can be as simple as “a red block on top of a green
block” or as complex as “a cube with the texture of a porcupine.” The programs are trained
on large datasets with millions or billions of text-image pairs—that is, images with textual
descriptions.
NLP presents certain issues, especially as machine-learning algorithms and the like often
express biases implicit in the content on which they are trained. For example, when asked to
describe a doctor, language models may be more likely to respond with “He is a doctor” than
“She is a doctor,” demonstrating inherent gender bias. Bias in NLP can have real-world
consequences. For instance, in 2015 Amazon’s NLP program for résumé screening to aid in
the selection of job candidates was found to discriminate against women, as women were
underrepresented in the original training set collected from employees.

Autonomous vehicles
Machine learning and AI are foundational elements of autonomous vehicle systems. Vehicles
are trained on complex data (e.g., the movement of other vehicles, road signs) with machine
learning, which helps to improve the algorithms they operate under. AI enables vehicles’
systems to make decisions without needing specific instructions for each potential situation.
In order to make autonomous vehicles safe and effective, artificial simulations are created to
test their capabilities. To create such simulations, black-box testing is used, in contrast to
white-box validation. White-box testing, in which the internal structure of the system being
tested is known to the tester, can prove the absence of failure. Black-box methods are much
more complicated and involve taking a more adversarial approach. In such methods, the
internal design of the system is unknown to the tester, who instead targets the external design
and structure. These methods attempt to find weaknesses in the system to ensure that it meets
high safety standards.
As of 2024, fully autonomous vehicles are not available for consumer purchase. Certain
obstacles have proved challenging to overcome. For example, maps of almost four million
miles of public roads in the United States would be needed for an autonomous vehicle to
operate effectively, which presents a daunting task for manufacturers. Additionally, the most
popular cars with a “self-driving” feature, those of Tesla, have raised safety concerns, as such
vehicles have even headed toward oncoming traffic and metal posts. AI has not progressed to
the point where cars can engage in complex interactions with other drivers or with cyclists or
pedestrians. Such “common sense” is necessary to prevent accidents and create a safe
environment.

In October 2015 Google’s self-driving car, Waymo (which the company had been working on
since 2009) completed its first fully driverless trip with one passenger. The technology had
been tested on one billion miles within simulations, and two million miles on real roads.
Waymo, which boasts a fleet of fully electric-powered vehicles, operates in San Francisco and
Phoenix, where users can call for a ride, much as with Uber or Lyft. The steering wheel, gas
pedal, and brake pedal operate without human guidance, differentiating the technology from
Tesla’s autonomous driving feature. Though the technology’s valuation peaked at $175 billion
in November 2019, it had sunk to just $30 billion by 2020. Waymo is being investigated by
the U.S. National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) after more than 20
different reports of traffic violations. In certain cases, the vehicles drove on the wrong side of
the road and in one instance, hit a cyclist.

Virtual assistants
Virtual assistants (VAs) serve a variety of functions, including helping users schedule tasks,
making and receiving calls, and guiding users on the road. These devices require large
amounts of data and learn from user input to become more effective at predicting user needs
and behavior. The most popular VAs on the market are Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant,
and Apple’s Siri. Virtual assistants differ from chatbots and conversational agents in that they
are more personalized, adapting to an individual user’s behavior and learning from it to
improve over time.
Human-machine communication began in the 1960s with Eliza. PARRY, designed by the
psychiatrist Kenneth Colby, followed in the early 1970s and was designed to mimic a
conversation with a person with paranoid schizophrenia. Simon, designed by IBM in 1994,
was one of the first devices that could technically be called a “smartphone,” and was
marketed as a personal digital assistant (PDA). Simon was the first device to feature a
touchscreen, and it had email and fax capability as well. Although Simon was not technically
a VA, its development was essential in creating future assistants. In February 2010 Siri, the
first modern VA, was introduced for iOS, Apple’s mobile operating system, with the iPhone
4S. Siri was the first VA able to be downloaded to a smartphone.

Voice assistants parse human speech by breaking it down into distinct sounds known as
phonemes, using an automatic speech recognition (ASR) system. After breaking down the
speech, the VA analyzes and “remembers” the tone and other aspects of the voice to
recognize the user. Over time, VAs have become more sophisticated through machine
learning, as they have access to many millions of words and phrases. In addition, they often
use the Internet to find answers to user questions—for example, when a user asks for a
weather forecast.

Risks
AI poses certain risks in terms of ethical and socioeconomic consequences. As more tasks
become automated, especially in such industries as marketing and health care, many workers
are poised to lose their jobs. Although AI may create some new jobs, these may require more
technical skills than the jobs AI has replaced.

Moreover, AI has certain biases that are difficult to overcome without proper training. For
example, U.S. police departments have begun using predictive policing algorithms to indicate
where crimes are most likely to occur. However, such systems are based partly on arrest rates,
which are already disproportionately high in Black communities. This may lead to over-
policing in such areas, which further affects these algorithms. As humans are inherently
biased, algorithms are bound to reflect human biases.
Privacy is another aspect of AI that concerns experts. As AI often involves collecting and
processing large amounts of data, there is the risk that this data will be accessed by the wrong
people or organizations. With generative AI, it is even possible to manipulate images and
create fake profiles. AI can also be used to survey populations and track individuals in public
spaces. Experts have implored policymakers to develop practices and policies that maximize
the benefits of AI while minimizing the potential risks. In January 2024 singer Taylor Swift
was the target of sexually explicit non-consensual deepfakes that were widely circulated on
social media. Many individuals had already faced this type of online abuse (made possible by
AI), but Swift’s status brought the issue to the forefront of public policy.

Google data center

Aerial view of a Google data center complex in Eemshaven, Netherlands.

LLMs are located at data centers that require large amounts of electricity. In 2020 Microsoft
pledged that it would be carbon neutral by 2030. In 2024 it announced that in the previous
fiscal year its carbon emissions had increased by almost 30 percent, mostly from the building
materials and hardware required in building more data centers. A ChatGPT query requires
about 10 times more electricity than a Google Search. Goldman Sachs has estimated that data
centers will use about 8 percent of U.S. electricity in 2030.
As of 2024 there are few laws regulating AI. Existing laws such as the European Union’s
General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act
(CCPA) do govern AI models but only insofar as they use personal information. The most
wide-reaching regulation is the EU’s AI Act, which passed in March 2024. Under the AI Act,
models that perform social scoring of citizens’ behavior and characteristics and that attempt
to manipulate users’ behavior are banned. AI models that deal with “high-risk” subjects, such
as law enforcement and infrastructure, must be registered in an EU database.
AI has also led to issues concerning copyright law and policy. In 2023 the U.S. government
Copyright Office began an initiative to investigate the issue of AI using copyrighted works to
generate content. That year almost 15 new cases of copyright-related suits were filed against
companies involved in creating generative AI programs. One prominent company, Stability
AI, came under fire for using unlicensed images to generate new content. Getty Images,
which filed the suit, added its own AI feature to its platform, partially in response to the host
of services that offer “stolen imagery.” There are also questions of whether work created by
AI is worthy of a copyright label. Currently, AI-made content cannot be copyrighted, but
there are arguments for and against copyrighting it.
Although many AI companies claim that their content does not require human labor, in many
cases, such “groundbreaking” technology is reliant on exploited workers from developing
countries. For example, a Time magazine investigation found that OpenAI had used Kenyan
workers (who had been paid less than $2 an hour) to sort through text snippets in order to
help remove toxic and sexually explicit language from ChatGPT. The project was canceled in
February 2022 because of how traumatic the task was for workers. Alhough Amazon had
marketed its Amazon Go cashier-less stores as being fully automated (e.g., its AI could detect
the items in a customer’s basket), it was revealed that the “Just Walk Out” technology was
actually powered by outsourced labor from India, where more than a thousand workers
operated as “remote cashiers,” leading to the joke that, in this case, AI stood for Actually
Indians.

Is artificial general intelligence (AGI) possible?

Artificial general intelligence (AGI), or strong AI—that is, artificial intelligence that aims to
duplicate human intellectual abilities—remains controversial and out of reach. The difficulty
of scaling up AI’s modest achievements cannot be overstated.

However, this lack of progress may simply be testimony to the difficulty of AGI, not to its
impossibility. Let us turn to the very idea of AGI. Can a computer possibly think? The
theoretical linguist Noam Chomsky suggests that debating this question is pointless, for it is
an essentially arbitrary decision whether to extend common usage of the word think to
include machines. There is, Chomsky claims, no factual question as to whether any such
decision is right or wrong—just as there is no question as to whether our decision to say that
airplanes fly is right, or our decision not to say that ships swim is wrong. However, this seems
to oversimplify matters. The important question is, Could it ever be appropriate to say that
computers think and, if so, what conditions must a computer satisfy in order to be so
described?
Some authors offer the Turing test as a definition of intelligence. However, the mathematician
and logician Alan Turing himself pointed out that a computer that ought to be described as
intelligent might nevertheless fail his test if it were incapable of successfully imitating a
human being. For example, ChatGPT often invokes its status as a large language model and
thus would be unlikely to pass the Turing test. If an intelligent entity can fail the test, then the
test cannot function as a definition of intelligence. It is even questionable whether passing the
test would actually show that a computer is intelligent, as the information theorist Claude
Shannon and the AI pioneer John McCarthy pointed out in 1956. Shannon and McCarthy
argued that, in principle, it is possible to design a machine containing a complete set of
canned responses to all the questions that an interrogator could possibly ask during the fixed
time span of the test. Like PARRY, this machine would produce answers to the interviewer’s
questions by looking up appropriate responses in a giant table. This objection seems to show
that, in principle, a system with no intelligence at all could pass the Turing test.
In fact, AI has no real definition of intelligence to offer, not even in the subhuman case. Rats
are intelligent, but what exactly must an artificial intelligence achieve before researchers can
claim that it has reached rats’ level of success? In the absence of a reasonably precise criterion
for when an artificial system counts as intelligent, there is no objective way of telling whether
an AI research program has succeeded or failed. One result of AI’s failure to produce a
satisfactory criterion of intelligence is that, whenever researchers achieve one of AI’s goals—
for example, a program that can hold a conversation like GPT or beat the world chess
champion like Deep Blue—critics are able to say, “That’s not intelligence!” Marvin Minsky’s
response to the problem of defining intelligence is to maintain—like Turing before him—that
intelligence is simply our name for any problem-solving mental process that we do not yet
understand. Minsky likens intelligence to the concept of “unexplored regions of Africa”: it
disappears as soon as we discover it.