
Ask HN: Can someone please say where AI is real? - forgottenacc57
I read constantly about AI but where is it in any real world application?<p>If you have an example, please explain why it is AI and not just a computer program.<p>Sounds like smoke and mirrors to me.
======
mindcrime
There is no real answer to this question, as the goal-posts for "what is AI"
are always moved as soon as AI can do something. And the distinction between
AI and "just a computer program" is kinda arbitrary. All AI is "just a
computer program"if it's running on a computer.

Edit:

To expand on this a little more... I think it's important to remember that
"AI" isn't a "thing" so much as a "field" or a family of (possibly somewhat
related) techniques. That is, AI includes specific algorithms and approaches
ranging from automated reasoners and inference engines, to pattern recognition
using deep learning, to evolutionary algorithms, planning algorithms, etc.,
etc. What there isn't yet is one single artificial general intelligence that
we can talk about as the be-all end-all of AI.

So yeah, individual organizations are using AI _techniques_ all over the
place. But nobody is using "AI" because it doesn't exist yet.

------
rm999
I've been working in machine learning for a relatively long time (~15 years),
and most of what I've seen does not pass my AI smell test: "do the results
amaze me, even though I built it and know how it works?" I am confident true
AI, by any reasonable definition, will pass this test, so I think it's a valid
question to ask (to be clear I love machine learning, I just think its tight
relationship with the term "AI" is an historical error).

Deep neural networks on visual and audio data are passing my smell test. At my
last job I helped design and build neural networks to process music data. The
results were shockingly good: the networks could tell us a very wide variety
of information about a song at an accuracy that exceeded human experts,
including genre and mood. This is in a domain that most people think of as
very human ("understanding" and "feeling" music), which is what made the
results so impressive.

The goalposts will continue to move, but an inflection point has been hit in
the last few years. I believe we'll see at least one or two more inflection
points in the next several decades as we move closer and closer to "strong"
conscious AIs that are functionally above human intelligence.

------
smt88
Self-driving vehicles. IBM Watson, supposedly.

Also AI always means "a level of intelligence we haven't achieved yet." Siri
could've been considered AI in the past.

------
tabeth
Additionally, I'd love to see where it is being used where:

1\. It's not for an adtech or financial application.

2\. It's not for a company that's primarily adtech or finance.

Though clearly AI has value, it seems in practice much of it is implemented
for things of questionable human value.

Some examples:

1\. Search (some argue the heavy personalization has made it actually less
accurate, but that's subjective).

2\. Computer vision (main monetization seems to be computer vision/filters.
Self driving cars will be useful if and when that comes to fruition)

3\. Handwriting recognition. I think this is a great example of AI being
helpful. I'm not sure how much of this is "AI" vs. just statistics and machine
learning. Maybe it's all the same, in this context.

~~~
forgottenacc57
It's a funny thing that handwriting recognition is seen as worthwhile. Who
writes by hand any more, and who prefers handwriting to a keyboard?

~~~
tabeth
You don't have to actually write for it to be helpful. There are billions of
handwritten documents out there already. OCR and handwriting recognition can
help with archiving.

------
vivekchandsrc
Picture tagging in Facebook based on computer vision. AI is being implemented
in medical diagnostics. Deepmind has demonstrated reduction in Data centre
power consumption.

------
Jenny2017
AI can bring with it a lot of issues and it can be annoying sometimes. Here is
an article about where it can go wrong. [https://www.surfly.com/blog/ai-in-
customer-support/?utm_sour...](https://www.surfly.com/blog/ai-in-customer-
support/?utm_source=hackernews)

------
DrNuke
AI is not a magic wand, just a tool to perform some tasks in a quick and
hopefully more efficient manner than humans. What is it going to be then in
the real world? As with any tool, it will depend on the humans using it:
medicine and science might be good, military and finance might end in tears.

------
bsvalley
In 1999 Amazon created a program that would look at your purchase history and
recommend you new books. That's a great example of AI in the real world.

In 2016, investors decided to make AI a new priority (it kinda was there for
ever). So all the tech companies use this word today to stay "relevant".

------
ParameterOne
Maybe it already exists but you don't know what it looks like........and maybe
they like it like that :)

------
id122015
AI can fail, just like programs.

------
PrimalPlasma
Amazon Go.

