What is Artificial Intelligence? with Examples, Definition, Types

AI or Artificial Intelligence has become such a buzzword these days, with a lot of applications in various areas, like transport, entertainment, healthcare, and many many others. Even today, there are many cases, when we are witnessing the power of Artificial Intelligence, to accomplish certain tasks.

Now, there is a time when many people can hardly spend some time without a Mobile Phone or the Internet in particular, and there may come a time when it would be hard to imagine things without Artificial Intelligence. When Artificial Intelligence is being incorporated into many of the services, or products that we are using in most of our daily lives, it becomes important to understand what is Artificial Intelligence!

Understanding this, we have come up with this super easy-to-understand article on what is Artificial Intelligence. Going through this article, you will be able to build a brief understanding of what is Artificial Intelligence, and understand its importance and need in today’s world.

What is Artificial Intelligence? with Examples, Definition, Types

When many people hear the term Artificial Intelligence, they think about it as if it is something, that is very out of our scope of understanding, and it is there for very few people in this world. But in reality (unless you are living under a rock), there is a great probability that you have experienced or used Artificial Intelligence, either knowingly, or unknowingly.

Have you ever used Google Search, Google Maps, or some kind of social media (like Facebook or Instagram), or have you ever talked to Alexa or Siri or Google Assistant, if any of these answers is Yes, then my friend, you have already witnessed the power of Artificial Intelligence.

So, Artificial Intelligence is not something that is there for very few people in this world, but it is there for everybody, so everybody should have some understanding (at least at a superficial level) of something that is already around them in many cases. This brings us to understand what is Artificial Intelligence.

Artificial Intelligence Definition

So, to understand Artificial Intelligence, let’s break down the term into two, making it “Artificial” and “Intelligence”. For the term Artificial, we know that it is something, which is not natural or is human-made. What about the term Intelligence? In a simple way, let’s define Intelligence as an ability to learn from experience, solve complex problems, and make decisions on the basis of learning.

Advantages of Artificial Intelligence

So, Artificial Intelligence can be understood as using a set of technologies, using which, we can create machines, or systems, which can perform tasks, which require human intelligence, like playing chess, driving cars, being able to recognize and recommend things, and much much more.

Okay, so this was an easy introduction to what is Artificial Intelligence in super general terms. It is important to note that Artificial Intelligence is being incorporated in many situations of even our regular lives. So, this was about what is Artificial Intelligence! If you are more curious about Artificial Intelligence, let’s get more into exploring Artificial Intelligence.

Strong AI and Weak AI

Now, let’s try to define what is Strong AI, and Weak AI. These refer to the level of intelligence or autonomy possessed by the AI Systems.

What is Weak AI? (Narrow AI, or specialized AI)

First of all, let’s discuss Weak AI first. Weak AI is also referred to as Narrow AI or Specialized AI, and as the name suggests, it is developed to perform some specific tasks, or for solving some particular problem.

It usually focuses on performing some particular task really well! While it may seem to be much more intelligent, there are certain limitations to this Narrow Intelligence, since it is good at something in particular.

Weak AI Examples

For example, the Self Driving car can be considered as a Narrow AI, since it is good at driving cars, but not at recommending movies, or detecting if the transaction is fraudulent (since it is not specifically programmed to do so). Just not a self-driving car, but many of the AI Systems that exist today are an example of Narrow AI because they are designed to perform a particular task, in a limited domain.

Here are some more examples of Narrow AI –

• Google Search
• Spam Filter
• Movie Recommendation System
• Self Driving Cars
• Siri, Google Assistant, etc.
• Conversational Chatbots.
  And many others.

As mentioned earlier, many of the AI systems that we use today are Narrow AI, but there are people and organizations, making efforts to build more advanced AI systems, to get them closer to human beings in terms of autonomy and intelligence. This is often referred to as Artificial General Intelligence or AGI. So, with this, let’s discuss Strong AI as well.

What is Strong AI

As mentioned earlier, weak AI refers to some AI system, that is designed for doing some particular task, like recommending a movie, driving a car, or detecting if the transaction is fraud or not, but unlike this, Strong AI, often referred to as Artificial General Intelligence or AGI, is like a machine, which can solve some problems which it has never seen, or never trained to work on, which is much like a human.

You might have come across some Sci-Fi movies, in which you can witness such kind of AI, and sometimes many wish that such AI should stay till movies only, because can you right now imagine a machine, which can simulate a human, just like another human? Even thinking about it can give goosebumps to many, since the impact that follows, is unknown, and full of uncertainty.

Today, for many people, even imagining this kind of AI is hard, but some believe that the AGI can be there within a few years, we already have AI systems, which are helping us a lot in research and development, so when AI has teamed up with humans, then there is the probability that we would be able to experience the Artificial General Intelligence,

Strong AI Examples

So, unlike Weak AI, Strong AI represents some machine, which is designed to perform a variety of tasks, just like humans can do many tasks, and can solve even the problems on which they are never trained.

Types of Artificial Intelligence

If you are still reading, it seems that AI feels interesting to you, and it should be, because it’s a bigger shift in the world of technology, and it is going to change the way many things are today!

Now, let’s discuss some of the types of Artificial Intelligence. Artificial Intelligence can be broadly classified into the following types. Note that these types are according to the complexity of the tasks that can be performed by the AI system.

• Reactive Machines
• Limited Memory
• Theory of Mind
• Self Aware AI

Now, that we have listed some of the types of Artificial Intelligence, let’s now have a look at these different types one by one.

Reactive Machines

As the name says in this case, this type of AI only reacts on the basis of some preprogrammed rules. In other words, we can say that it is capable of using its intelligence to react to different stimuli. Well, this type of AI does not have memory, and hence, it cannot improve or learn with new data.

So, simply we can understand that a Reactive Machine is a simple kind of Artificial Intelligence, which can react to certain inputs, and it has no learning capacity, and no memory. So, it cannot adapt to some changes. Here are a few common examples of Reactive Machines –

• A Chess-playing computer program.
• Automatic Doors, which open when approached by someone.
• Robotic Vacuum Cleaners
  And many others.

Limited Memory

This type of Artificial Intelligence has memory, so it can improve with time when trained on new data. The Limited Memory AI is more complex and projects more possibilities of what Artificial Intelligence can bring into the world of Technology.

It is created when we train some model on the data, make some predictions, or make decisions. Examples of Limited Memory AI include –

• Spam Filters for Emails
• Self-driving cars
• Virtual Assistants
  And many more … 

Theory Of Mind

The name says it again. This type of AI does not exist as of now, but research is going on, to make this breakthrough a possibility. It can be described as Artificial Intelligence, which has the ability to emulate a human mind and has similar decision-making capabilities as humans do.

Simply saying, machines will behave just as humans do, in terms of recognizing and remembering emotions and reacting socially similarly to how humans do. This can be considered a great breakthrough in AI!

Self Aware AI

Just like the Theory of Mind AI, Self Aware AI also does not exist, as of now, but this is one step ahead of the Theory of Mind AI. Self-aware AI simply means that the AI is aware of its existence, and possesses emotional and intellectual capabilities like a human.

It is important for us to understand that what we call, or use Artificial Intelligence, is actually Narrow AI since it is designed for performing some specific task. Just like a self-driving car is good at driving the car, but not at recommending some movie. So, here, AI is good at doing something in particular.

Artificial General Intelligence, or AGI, would add much more power to the AI, giving it the ability to sense, think, and act, similar to how a human does. As of now, this AGI thing does not exist, but many believe that it may not be too far.

Beyond this, we would have Artificial Superintelligence, where the machine will be able to work superior to humans.

Examples of Artificial Intelligence

Now, let’s have a look at some of the examples of Artificial Intelligence so that we can have a concrete idea of where this revolutionary thing is being incorporated, to make our lives better. There are a lot of areas, devices, and services, that are using Artificial Intelligence, and here, we are listing a few of them.

• Google Maps
• Smart Virtual Assistant (Siri, Alexa, Google Assistant)
• Self Driving Cars
• ChatGPT
• Bing AI
• Dall-E-2
• Midjourney
• Robot Vacuum Cleaner
  And many many more.

There are many other examples related to Artificial Intelligence, which we are mostly using, or experiencing in our daily lives, or regular lives at least.

So, it becomes important for us, to understand Artificial Intelligence, use it to our benefit, and not harm anyone, or anything, in any terms.

Conclusion –

In this article, we tried to learn about Artificial Intelligence, and I hope that you could get a brief introduction to what is Artificial Intelligence so that you can explore it more, freely. Again, Artificial Intelligence is not something that is there for a few people, it’s there for everybody. It is there to make healthcare better, social experience better, and research and development better. In short, it is there to make our lives better, and to open new doors of possibilities in many terms.

Artificial Intelligence, in many cases, is being used/experienced by many in their regular lives. So, this was about Artificial Intelligence. If you are interested in learning more about Artificial Intelligence, Machine learning, and Python, you can consider reading the related articles too.

FAQs About Artificial Intelligence