Red Sky Digital

The Rise Of Artificial Intelligence, Where Will It End?

The history of Artificial Intelligence is long, but it is only recently that technology organizations, markets, and app development companies here in Singapore have begun to realize considerable success in its application. These recent achievements have geared other tech experts to engage in this field on an industrial scale. However, a significant challenge right now is that there are insufficient numbers of data scientists, cloud architects and software developers that really understand machine learning and Artificial Intelligence. For the few data scientists and software developers who do, there is a high demand for their services. They are also expected to stay abreast of a fast paced technology sector to remain relevant.

Evolution of Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence was first proposed as a concept by Alan Turing in the early 1950’s. It was recognized as a field of study at the Dartmouth conference in 1956, in which AI was used as a heading to encompass language simulation with neural networks modeled on the human brain. Although it was a developing field back then, AI was made possible with machine learning techniques used to examine various datasets with the aid of algorithms.

Advances in machine learning in 1980 provided a broader avenue for development in AI. By using multiple machines, full instructions could now be encoded into a computer which it could use to make faster machine level decisions. Deep learning could absorb all these instructions but required a massive neural network of data points to allow a system make a valid judgment.

Academics began focusing heavily on machine level deep learning around 2006, although, the concept had been floating around for many decades. This was in part due to the previous unavailability of faster learning algorithms required for developing AI. The availability of these fast learning algorithm at this point in history brought increased attention to deep learning. Development and advancement in AI were now being pushed forward by both academic and business communities with better performance across AI systems and applications a priority.

The various innovations in AI could result in many changes and reconstruction of many sectors, especially here in Singapore and Asia Pacific in general. All jobs at all levels in society currently undertaken by humans are at the risk of being reassigned to robots or AI.

Gazing into the future, some school of thought has suggested that government will have to determine the jobs to be assigned exclusively to humans and robots. This they say will ‘introduce a form of human and robot quota’ into private and government sectors. Increasing sophistication in mechanical autonomy will most probably cause problems in defining various legal responsibilities for accidents involving new technology, developed by local software companies. With debate as to whether the owner or the manufacturer will pay insurance costs. Also, limits will have to be placed on some aspects of industrial autonomy.

Stephen Hawking, a world-renowned British physicist, recently said in a major annual event that, ‘AI will be able to redesign itself at an ever increasing rate. Humans, who are limited by slow biological evolution, couldn’t compete and could be superseded by AI’. With the increasing development and advancement in AI, research must be done to avoid pitfalls while reaping the benefits of the new technology.