Best Real-world Uses of AI

11-03-2019 | By Moe Long

Artificial intelligence (AI), while popular in science fiction films ranging from “The Terminator” to “2001: A Space Odyssey,” looks a bit different than its current real-world implementation. AI boasts a bevy of applications, from gaming to virtual assistants. AI supplements daily life through delivering accurate recommendations on streaming platforms like Spotify and Netflix, difficult enemies in video games, and even full- or semi-autonomous vehicles. Here are the best real-world uses of AI!

1. AI in Gaming

Though gaming might not be the first artificial intelligence example that comes to mind, it’s a widespread use case for AI. For adaptive behaviors in video games, AI plays a crucial key in creating non-player characters (NPCs). Often, game reviewers refer to enemy AI, and especially in the early days of gaming this area suffered. “Halo” featured, for its time, remarkable artificial intelligence with enemies throwing grenades back. Among the best examples of AI in video games, “Middle of Earth: Shadow of Mordor” features AI which form relationship, becoming menacing foes or begrudging allies.

2. Recommendation Engines

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Image source: https://pixabay.com/photos/tv-man-watching-room-office-3774381/

Next time you pull up Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime, or your favorite streaming video app, you just might Netflix and AI. Recommendation engines are powered by artificial intelligence, with intelligent machine learning algorithms analyzing chunks of data. Your activity is analyzed by machine learning algorithms and compared to data from other users. Then, you’ll receive recommendations on what you’d like to binge.

3. Virtual Assistant

An intelligent personal assistant, or virtual assistant, is a chatbot which allows for interaction through voice or text communication. Likely, if you’ve got an Android or iPhone, you have a virtual assistant whether or now you know about it. Google Assistant and Siri are prominent examples, alongside Amazon’s Alexa which is found on its smart speaker lineup. Functionality includes the ability to access information from databases such as Wikipedia, play streaming music and video by integrating with services including Spotify, Netflix, or Plex, and smart home device control. You can even build your own smart virtual assistant using software such as Mycroft.

4. Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare

Healthcare tech saw the adoption of artificial intelligence. A study found that computer-aided diagnosis (CAD), assisted radiologists in successfully identifying breast cancer in its early stages. This is a fantastic example of how AI can revolutionize virtually any industry. The implications of utilizing AI in healthcare include potential broadening of healthcare access, improving pathology analytics, and smartening up medical devices.

5. AI-driven Sales and Marketing

In sales and marketing, AI gets used frequently. There’s some crossover here with recommendation engines. You’ve probably encountered a scenario where you looked up a product on a website such as Amazon, Target, or another popular retailer. Then, almost every website you visited after that showed ads for that product, provided you didn’t have an adblocker installed. Aside from this, personalized emails may be sent to customers with coupons and specific offers for viewed products. These targeted ads and emails provide a fantastic example of how businesses should be using AI, though at times it can seem a bit creepy.

6. Security Through Artificial Intelligence

A major way artificial intelligence helps is through prediction. That results in recommended products, movies and TV shows to stream, and even healthcare analysis. It’s also prevalent in cybersecurity, fraud detection, and the security space as a whole.

7. Natural Language Processing

Computers and humans continue to interface more frequently, and natural language processing (NLP) focuses on the interactions of human and computer languages. NLP seeks to find ways for computers to process, then analyze, massive quantities of “natural,” or human, language. Through honing NLP, speech recognition, text to speech, and similar even transcription services benefit. For instance, Otter.ai is a nifty transcription service powered by artificial intelligence which is shockingly accurate. Chat bots may be used as the foundation of AI-powered productivity tools for loads of potential uses.

8. AI in Smartphone Technology

Among the more obvious artificial intelligence applications in smartphones, you’ll find virtual assistants such as Google Assistant, Bixby, and Siri. However, smartphones utilize AI at a deeper level. For instance, adaptive battery use, face ID, and photography often make use of artificial intelligence. Many phones tap into real-time image processing, object recognition, and real-time object segmentation which center on AI. Google Lens employs artificial intelligence to offer features such as Style Match for identifying styles, as well as Street View’s capability to identify landmarks, something which fuses AI and augmented reality (AR). Because of the demanding nature of AI, certain smartphones are better suited to artificial intelligence processing than others.

9. Smart Cars and Autonomous Vehicles

The automotive industry continues to evolve and assume more tech. Notably, Tesla has gone all-in adopting artificial intelligence for semi-autonomous vehicles. You’ll see AI implementations in cars manifest in the likes of lane assist warnings, automatic braking, and more. Ultimately, self-driving cars present a fantastic example of AI in the real-world.

10. AI Curated Social Media

Social media offers a prime example of artificial intelligence use cases at their finest. Platforms including Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest foster a customized experience with curated content intended to keep users engaged. Whether this arrives as seeing posts by users you frequently view, or targeted ads, AI plays a key role in shaping the social media experience.

The Best Real-world Uses of Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence isn’t new, though it’s increasingly applicable in a variety of sectors. Healthcare, cybersecurity, and the financial space have implemented AI with phenomenal results. Since its inception, AI in gaming played a crucial part, and as video games evolved to become more complex, so too has artificial intelligence in gaming. From natural language processing to video games and self-driving cars, AI continues to seep into several industries. It’s here to stay, and we’ll merely witness this trend ramp up as well as become more polished.

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By Moe Long

Moe Long is an editor, writer, and tech buff with a particular appreciation for Linux, Raspberry Pis, and retro gaming. When he's not hammering away at his keyboard, he enjoys running, reading, watching cinema, and listening to vinyl. You can read his writings on at Tech Up Your Life and check out his thoughts on all things tech.