designboom's TECH predictions for 2018: artificial intelligence

no area of technology is hotter than AI

we used to think artificial intelligence was a silly sci-fi concept but when you really look into it, it seems like its been slowly encroaching into most areas of everyday life! john mccarthy, who coined the term ‘artificial intelligence’ in 1956, complained that ‘as soon as it works, no one calls it AI anymore.’ what he means is the idea that once upon a time, technology like the photo library on our smartphone would have once been considered AI, now it’s just the norm. stop thinking of just robots – they’re just the container for AI, the body if you like, sometimes mimicking human form. but the AI itself is the computer inside the robot. AI is the brain!

good things come in threes so here are a some helpful explanations…
– artificial narrow intelligence (ANI): specializing in one area example like a chess champion computer.
– artificial general intelligence (AGI): that’s a machine that can do the smart stuff simple humans do.
– artificial superintelligence (ASI): now this is a computer not just a little smarter than a human but trillions of times smarter.

so where are we currently? a world running on ANI which is not especially scary – think email spam filters, google translate and even self-driving cars.

tech giants have big advantages to develop AI and will be fiercely competitive

saga design gave a face to digital assistants in their design of a phone cover in 2013 – a foreshadowing idea perhaps…
image © saga design

the truth is no one yet knows how to make it truly super smart, but some familiar names have put AI at the centre of their strategies as a way to improve their existing services. alphabet/parent of google, amazon, apple, facebook and microsoft; firms like alibaba and baidu in china; all giants with giant amounts of data – read more. making the technology seem tailor made for the big players. if it will always be this way, is not written in the stars just yet but if future AI systems could use sparser amounts of data what should we foresee..? business magnate and billionaire elon musk predicts a third world war in the competition for artificial intelligence domination – read more.

should you be terrified of the AI takeover?

stephen hawking prophesies AI could replace humans altogether
video courtesy of BBC news

two technology CEOs, who do not have competing businesses, have butted heads recently, highlighting the level of debate happening in the technology community over the future of AI. facebook’s chief exec mark zuckerberg has states that ‘in the next five to 10 years, AI is going to deliver so many improvements in the quality of our lives‘, hence the reason its’ at the heart of the its’ strategy. whereas fellow tech magnate and the aforementioned, elon musk has said zuckerberg’s understanding of the future of artificial intelligence is ‘limited’. instead musk fears that humans will need to merge with machines or we run the risk of becoming irrelevant so before machines are left to their own devices we’re likely to see a mixed system delivering a more automated society – read more.

it might be our best hope of finding alien life

elon musk, CEO of spaceX, revealed plans to establish a moon base and a colonization city on mars in september – read more
image © spaceX

the kepler space telescope is operated by nasa to discover other earths, some of which could support life. its latest discovery is related to exoplanets – earth-sized worlds that orbit around their own stars. the space agency said that the discovery was made with the help of google artificial intelligence, which is being used to analyse the data sent down by the telescope. by using machine learning provided by the tech giant, nasa hopes that it can pick through the possible planets more quickly and hopefully find life-supporting planets sooner – read more.

2050: the year artificial intelligence outperforms any intellectual task a human can do…

set 150 years in the future, industrial student evan mcdougall proposes using artificial intelligence to replicate human beings after death – read more
image © even mcdougall

…according to one survey of experts at a recent AI conference. researchers gathered earlier this month at the largest and most influential AI conference, neural information processing systems. this is the conference’s 40th year, and its most-attended, at 7,229 registrations (only 17.1% were women). take a look into the sea of computer scientists shaping the future of artificial intelligence and the first thing you’ll notice is all the backpacks – read more.

perhaps one day machines may even share the joke?

honda’s 3E robot concept uses artificial intelligence, presenting a model using a series of expressions to help develop relationships – read more
image © honda

we might think it impossible for computers to develop a sense of humor because the idea of them grasping the subtleties of our rich social and cultural settings seems impossible too. but that thinking may soon have to change. why? because humor influences people’s purchasing decisions… researchers in japan and at carnegie mellon university are all developing joke-telling robots that people seem to be amused by. they call themselves computational humorists, most of whom have backgrounds in computer science or artificial intelligence, some as comedians or in entertainment and some even collaborators in advertising – go figure! much of the ongoing research has been focused on teaching computers what’s funny so they can detect humor on a human-level. patience is a virtue when it comes to 100% computer-generated humor, this is years if not decades, away — consider it the final frontier – read more.

humanity rules boundaries, but it seems artificial intelligence dissolves them, a paradox that could unexpectedly unfold within the next year. this is all happening against a backdrop of other future predictions yet to be revealed in the following days and as they swirl about the galaxy – you’ll need emotional stamina to juggle them all.