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Just curious, do we have ANY examples of AI actually improving our lives today that we couldn't write off as examples of privacy invasion (like Facebook's face

by d33 11y ago

Just curious, do we have ANY examples of AI actually improving our lives today that we couldn't write off as examples of privacy invasion (like Facebook's face detection)? I'm getting the impression that it's not the AI that we should expect the utopia to appear from - instead, I put a lot of hope in microeconomies created by services like Uber or Airbnb that drive prices down. If only those were free and decentralised...

collyw 11y ago
Would you class all the automatic settings on my camera as AI? I often try setting them manually, but the automatic ones almost always seem to come out better.
adrianN 11y ago
You'd be hard pressed to find a definition of AI that people can agree on that existing systems fit. I'd count the stuff Google does to bring me relevant search results AI. That improves my life a lot. Automatic sorting of letters by destination is also pretty useful, as are automatic quality checks in factories. If you count optimization as AI, there are many applications, for example in chip design, that improve your day-to-day life a lot.
- monkmartinez 11y ago
  Your first sentence nails it; from AI is nothing short of the Borg to AI being smart factories that are XX% automated or Google searches... agreeing on the definition is problematic. Some thoughts: I think we have automated a great deal of our lives and automation is growing exponentially at present. Once we have achieved some critical breakover in automation, I believe we will start to see unification systems. These unification systems will bind the various forms of automation relegating human input to a bygone era. That is, the unification system will learn, optimize, and execute the "complete stack" of various industries... Think product distribution from factory to dock to end user. I don't think this type of automation is that far off. Is that "AI"? To me it is and I suspect most people outside of HN will call it something along those lines. When some kind of AI like Varuna in the novel _Influx_ by Daniel Suarez hits the streets people will not give one shit if you call it AI or God... they will be very, very afraid of it.
dragonbonheur 11y ago
Less industrial accidents. Not losing fingers to a hydraulic press is a big win for factory workers and even the dumbest machine intelligence.
romaniv 11y ago
I thinks that's a very good question. I can name countless cases of "semi-trivial" AI being used to improve people's lives. Tree/graph searches, linear regression and clustering algorithms are used all over the place: in science, engineering and medical field. However, when it comes to more sophisticated algorithms I am hard pressed to point out strongly positive use cases. I.e. something that actually make a positive impact for large groups of people, isn't a gimmick and does not involves massive privacy violations. Hm, I guess handwriting recognition is used by postal services. There are a lot of expert systems running behind the scenes in some industries (stuff that involves logistics, for example). Voice recognition helps disabled people to interact with computers. Machine translation can be useful at times. Although I've never been a situation when it made any significant difference in my life or in lives of anyone I know. Stuff like face detection in cameras or voice recognition in phones and cars seem cool, but nothing would really change if they weren't available. The most impactful uses of fancy AI that I know involves marketing and surveillance, and I don't consider either of those uses as a positive thing.
maaku 11y ago
Self-driving cars reducing people-death. Pharmacies not giving out the wrong medicine. Doctors diagnosing the right disease in the first place.
- naveen99 11y ago
  Doctors are working with imperfect information. Nothing can diagnose perfectly all the time, not even strong AI.
CapitalistCartr 11y ago
We're far more likely to get utopia (or dystopia) from robotics/automation than AI. I suspect either outcome is equally likely.
hiddencost 11y ago
Google search? I prefer to not even talk about "AI" at all, the word doesn't really point to anything we can talk about in a grounded or meaningful way (I consider it a word used to get people in suits to write checks). Machine Learning and Operations Research touch pretty much every aspect of our lives, however. Whether it be supply chain optimization, factory design, materials science, etc. etc. etc.

by d33 11y ago

collyw 11y ago

Would you class all the automatic settings on my camera as AI? I often try setting them manually, but the automatic ones almost always seem to come out better.

adrianN 11y ago

You'd be hard pressed to find a definition of AI that people can agree on that existing systems fit. I'd count the stuff Google does to bring me relevant search results AI. That improves my life a lot. Automatic sorting of letters by destination is also pretty useful, as are automatic quality checks in factories. If you count optimization as AI, there are many applications, for example in chip design, that improve your day-to-day life a lot.

monkmartinez 11y ago
Your first sentence nails it; from AI is nothing short of the Borg to AI being smart factories that are XX% automated or Google searches... agreeing on the definition is problematic. Some thoughts: I think we have automated a great deal of our lives and automation is growing exponentially at present. Once we have achieved some critical breakover in automation, I believe we will start to see unification systems. These unification systems will bind the various forms of automation relegating human input to a bygone era. That is, the unification system will learn, optimize, and execute the "complete stack" of various industries... Think product distribution from factory to dock to end user. I don't think this type of automation is that far off. Is that "AI"? To me it is and I suspect most people outside of HN will call it something along those lines. When some kind of AI like Varuna in the novel _Influx_ by Daniel Suarez hits the streets people will not give one shit if you call it AI or God... they will be very, very afraid of it.

dragonbonheur 11y ago

Less industrial accidents. Not losing fingers to a hydraulic press is a big win for factory workers and even the dumbest machine intelligence.

romaniv 11y ago

I thinks that's a very good question. I can name countless cases of "semi-trivial" AI being used to improve people's lives. Tree/graph searches, linear regression and clustering algorithms are used all over the place: in science, engineering and medical field. However, when it comes to more sophisticated algorithms I am hard pressed to point out strongly positive use cases. I.e. something that actually make a positive impact for large groups of people, isn't a gimmick and does not involves massive privacy violations. Hm, I guess handwriting recognition is used by postal services. There are a lot of expert systems running behind the scenes in some industries (stuff that involves logistics, for example). Voice recognition helps disabled people to interact with computers. Machine translation can be useful at times. Although I've never been a situation when it made any significant difference in my life or in lives of anyone I know. Stuff like face detection in cameras or voice recognition in phones and cars seem cool, but nothing would really change if they weren't available. The most impactful uses of fancy AI that I know involves marketing and surveillance, and I don't consider either of those uses as a positive thing.

maaku 11y ago

Self-driving cars reducing people-death. Pharmacies not giving out the wrong medicine. Doctors diagnosing the right disease in the first place.

naveen99 11y ago
Doctors are working with imperfect information. Nothing can diagnose perfectly all the time, not even strong AI.

CapitalistCartr 11y ago

We're far more likely to get utopia (or dystopia) from robotics/automation than AI. I suspect either outcome is equally likely.

hiddencost 11y ago

Google search? I prefer to not even talk about "AI" at all, the word doesn't really point to anything we can talk about in a grounded or meaningful way (I consider it a word used to get people in suits to write checks). Machine Learning and Operations Research touch pretty much every aspect of our lives, however. Whether it be supply chain optimization, factory design, materials science, etc. etc. etc.