I recently read a book called The Age of AI. The book was intended to provide an overview of the approaching trends for artificial intelligence (AI). The purpose of this article is not meant to provide a book report, but rather to share with you what I am learning about AI. I’d like to share with you three key themes I am learning about that might improve your upcoming dinner party conversation or spark an idea that you can use in your work or industry. I’ll divide these three themes into topics, trends and timing.
Topics
Whenever I learn about a new concept, I like to have an example or a story that I can relate to (clearly, I’m not as smart as an AI robot). While there are many examples of how AI is being used, I’m drawn to this story. It is about a chess-playing robot named Alpha Go Zero. You see, Alpha Go Zero was different than the chess robots created before it. Those other robots were taught specific moves by human experts (gameplay and best practices). The Alpha Go Zero robot was only provided the rules of chess and used AI to optimize wins. The robot taught itself by playing itself in about four hours and quickly went on to beat the world’s greatest human player and then the world’s greatest robot players. It even performed moves that humans would never consider — including sacrificing the queen to get a win.